


Working In Groups

by Alara J Rogers (AlaraJRogers)



Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Gen, Q as human, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2007-03-07
Updated: 2009-03-25
Packaged: 2017-10-03 09:45:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 60,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlaraJRogers/pseuds/Alara%20J%20Rogers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The anti deus ex machina remix of Deja Q. What if the Continuum hadn't interceded after Q's selfless act?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Picard had a good idea of who was in the moving shuttle before asking, but best to make sure. "Shuttle occupant, identify yourself."

Q's face appeared on the viewscreen. "Don't try to talk me out of it, Jean-Luc."

A rush of irritation ran through Picard. The day had barely begun, and already Q had managed to get on his last nerve. They didn't have _time_ for these histrionics. "Return to the ship immediately!"

"I just can't get used to following orders," Q said sarcastically.

Behind Picard, Worf announced, "The plasma cloud is moving toward the shuttlecraft."

Which was what Picard expected, unfortunately. It also didn't seem to come as any surprise to Q. "It's _easier_ this way," Q said. "They won't bother you after I'm gone.

Next to Picard, Riker said, "Engineering, prepare to extend shields."

On the screen, Q sneered at them. "Please, don't fall back on your tired cliché of charging to the rescue just in the nick of time," he snapped. "I don't _want_ to be rescued. My life as a human being has been a dismal failure. Perhaps my death will have a little dignity."

Abruptly Picard realized why, or one of the reasons why, Q annoyed him so very much. He didn't like children, and the entity had all the emotional maturity of an overgrown adolescent. "Nobody likes me and I don't like having to eat and sleep, so I'm going to kill myself to save you all and then you'll be sorry!" All right, to be fair, Q hadn't said those words, but it was plainly what he meant. Picard snapped, "Q, there is no dignity in this suicide!"

"Yes, I suppose you're right," Q said. "Death of a coward then, so be it. But as a human-- I would have died of boredom."

The transmission cut. It was unlikely Q would actually answer again, having had the last word. Picard really just did not have time for this. "This goes against my better judgment," he muttered. "Transporter room three, lock onto Shuttle One. Beam it back into its bay."

"Aye, Captain," the transporter chief said.

Riker looked at him askance. Mock-defensive, not quite willing to admit that he wasn't going to let Q kill himself, he said, "It's a perfectly good shuttlecraft."

A moment later the transporter room reported, "Transport complete, Captain."

"Mr. Worf. Have a Security team escort Q from the shuttle bay to my ready room. I think he and I need to have a talk."

"Would you prefer to have him held in the brig until you're ready to speak to him, sir?"

"Don't tempt me, Mr. Worf."

* * *

Picard was prepared.

He sat in his ready room, scanning the reports from engineering, waiting for Q. It didn't take long-- Worf was nothing if not efficient, and his security officers were as well.

Q pulled free of his security escort as the doorway opened, and stormed into the room. "What do you think you're doing, Picard?" he demanded.

"I think I had better be asking that question of _you_. What sort of juvenile stunt did you call that?"

"_Juvenile?_ I was trying to save your pathetic little _ship!_"

"Oh, yes. How very noble and brave of you, Q. Selflessly sacrifice the life you can't stand, run away from your guilt and your fear, and neatly solve everyone's problems, including our problem of having you aboard at all. And then, I imagine, we were expected to feel sorry that you were dead? Perhaps hold a funeral service, in which we all expressed deep regret for having misjudged you?"

"I wasn't expecting a funeral service, no," Q shot back. "But a _bit_ of acknowledgement of my sacrifice might have been nice, instead of treating me as if my decision to try to save your ship from the problem _I_ caused is somehow yet another silly game on my part. Would you really rather I stuck it out to the bitter end, until the Calamarain blow up your ship to get to me and the people of Bre'el IV die screaming?"

"I would _rather_ that you stop acting as if the universe revolves around _you._ Yes, the Calamarain are a problem. Yes, they are here because of you. That does _not_ mean you are the only one capable of solving the problem, or that the only recourse left to us is your self-sacrifice. You seem to be incapable of imagining that anyone _else_ could come up with a plan, despite the fact that you _know_ we have experience solving far more difficult conundrums than this."

Q stared. "I don't believe you. What is this, 'Heads I'm right, tails Q's wrong?' When I act like it's your job to protect me, you tell me I'm selfish. When I decide to relieve you from _having_ to protect me, so you can do this moon thing, _that's_ selfish too?"

"No, it's not." Picard softened his tone. Q had, at least, tried, irritating as his attempt was. "It's self-_centered_, not selfish. If I thought you were making a rational decision, having weighed all the odds and considered our capabilities, that would be different. But you're suicidally depressed over the loss of your powers, which, frankly, is idiotic-- you are perfectly capable of learning to function as a human, if you allow it enough time. And since you're bored, and frightened, and miserable as you put it, the solution you jump to is quite naturally to run away from the challenges mortality holds, and try to martyr yourself. You admitted it yourself-- this is sheer cowardice."

He paused for a moment. Q actually seemed to be at a loss for words. He was breathing hard, staring rigidly at Picard, mouth slightly open as if he wanted to say something, but nothing was actually coming out.

"You _need_ to work with us, Q. This isn't something you should be trying to solve yourself. For one thing, solving situations like this without your powers to draw on is not your area of expertise."

"I thought I had a perfectly good solution. And I still don't see what you think is wrong with it. Why does it matter why I want to kill myself? What do _you_ care? You made it perfectly clear you don't really have any concern for me whatsoever, and I will _not_ put up with human pity! Not when it's a-- a _reflex_, with no thought or even genuine emotion behind it. You're trying to save my life because that's what humans do. Simple, stupid instinct. I'm a superior being, Picard; I can't let you all die for nothing but your primitive instincts."

"Believe me, Q, my _primitive_ instinct was not to save your life. It's human civilization, human ethics. _I_ can't let a civilian on my ship sacrifice himself to save the rest of us."

"Look, just let me go, all right? I'm sorry I asked for your protection in the first place. I don't need it any more. You obviously have far more important things to do." His tone was bitter, sarcastic, but there was something wrong with his eyes. They were too wide, too bright for sarcasm.

"But you did. You asked us for help, because you knew our compassion would drive us to try to protect you. You admitted as much yourself. It's a two-edged sword, Q. Having given you our protection, we can't rescind it--"

"Then you're an idiot, and you're going to die!" Q leaned forward, over the desk, into Picard's face. "I wouldn't even _care_ if you were all going to die and I'd live, but I'm going to end up dead anyway, so why would I want to drag you all along with me? What use would that be?" He turned away, perching himself on the desk. "You have to be practical, Picard. You have how many millions of people to save? If just one dies, you're doing remarkably well. Can't you do basic mathematics?"

"When sentient beings' lives are at stake, mathematics isn't the best tool for decision making. I will not sacrifice you as long as there may be another solution. Now, you have a choice. You claimed you could help us stop the moon from falling, that you have an intimate knowledge of physics, and yet when you were asked to help you were virtually useless. Either you have the ability to use that supposed superior intellect to try to _help_ us solve this problem, or you don't. If you don't, you can remain confined to quarters while we figure out how to stop the Calamarain from killing you _and_ saving Bre'el IV. If you do, I want to see some evidence of it."

"Have you _any_ idea what LaForge asked me to do?" Q asked incredulously. "He had me reading him _numbers_. Off a screen. A job any monkey could do!"

"When he asked you for more useful insights, apparently you told him to change the gravitational constant of the universe." Picard glared at Q, sternly. "You _must_ have known that wasn't possible for us. I doubt you ever intended to be genuinely helpful. Or perhaps you can't be."

"I was stressed, all right? I was in crippling pain, and all right, it was stupid, I should have remembered your capabilities. But that's no reason to have me doing tedious, mindless work. That's not -- I can't _do_ that. That's like having a Vulcan do comedy. It doesn't make use of my strengths at all. Either you use me for what I'm good for or you just let me kill myself, because I won't stand here _powerless_ while the rest of you try and fail to have your cake and eat it too."

"What are you good for, then, Q? Tell me."

"Coming up with ideas! I may not be an expert on your limitations, but I understand possibilities. If you can't change the gravitational constant of the universe, fine, but your little ship doesn't appear to be _totally_ useless. I could think of some things you might be able to do and have LaForge and Data figure out whether or not your technology can do it."

Picard didn't smile, but inside he felt a small surge of triumph. He had successfully gotten Q refocused on actually trying to help rather than whining and then trying to martyr himself. "Very well then. I'll call a meeting in an hour. I'll have you escorted to quarters. Clean yourself up and come up with some ideas, if you think you can."

"Of course I can." He looked down at his shirt. "Clean myself up? Am I dirty? I know I've fallen on the floor a few times, but your floors seem sanitary."

Picard took a deep breath. _He's totally ignorant,_ he reminded himself. _He genuinely doesn't know how to be human._ Q's hair was matted to his head with sweat, his jumpsuit had dark stains under the armpits, and he smelled sour, the sweat of fear having soaked into his clothes and gone stale on his skin. "Your smell is unpleasant," he said bluntly. "It happens to humans as a day progresses, or as they come under stress. I imagine no one suggested to you last night that you wash, or change clothes. You need to do that. Wash yourself, get odor suppressants out of the replicator and apply them, and change your clothes."

"Oh." For a moment Q looked as if he'd been slapped. Then he brightened. "Can I have a Starfleet uniform?"

"No. But the replicator has a menu to help you pick out clothing. I should think you'd jump at the chance; you've complained quite a bit about your outfit."

"I didn't pick it out," Q groused. "I would have been much more attractive wearing _nothing_ than this... thing." He gestured at it. "Plus, it's pinching me."

"Well, then you'll be happy to change it, I would imagine."

"Positively delighted."

"Good." He touched his combadge. "I'd like a security escort to take Q to quarters. Have the computer assign him a room."

* * *

Starfleet quarters, like the rest of their décor, were boring beyond belief. Q stripped off his clothes thankfully and threw them on the floor. Much better. Did all clothes feel this unpleasant? He'd always enjoyed wearing attractive clothes when he'd been in humanoid form with his powers, and pain and discomfort had merely been poorly understood concepts, but these, in addition to being hideous, were also horrifically uncomfortable, and he had no guarantee that something more aesthetically pleasing would actually _feel_ any better. If only they'd let him walk around without wearing any of this painfully restrictive stuff. Stupid, outdated human morality.

Now that Picard had pointed out that the bad smell he'd been catching whiffs of for some time was actually _him_, he felt even more miserable and humiliated about being human. He knew they had to bathe, but not that they'd _reek_ like this if they didn't. On top of the bleakness he'd felt earlier when he'd realized what a lousy human he was and how little he was suited for surviving this existence, it almost made him want to find a way to do himself in right here. But Picard was giving him another chance to prove himself, an opportunity to actually be _useful_ and maybe win himself the right to stay here. It would all probably end up being useless in the end and he'd die anyway, but the notion of dying after putting up a heroic struggle and being useful enough to Picard that the man would actually miss him once he was dead was much more attractive than the notion of just giving up. Especially to the Calamarain. Idiotic, hidebound creatures that actually thought what he'd done to them was bad enough to be worth death. The fact that such pathetically stupid creatures were actually out to _kill_ him angered him, and while their success at harming him so far terrified him, he had too much invested in an image of himself as a brave rebel to be willing to give in to the fear if there was any alternative at all.

Think. He was a genius. While his comment about having an IQ of 2005 had been sheer hyperbole-- Q intellect couldn't be measured on a human scale, he wasn't a Q anymore anyway, and in human terms the scale didn't go that high-- he _knew_ he had to be smarter than the humans, if for no other reason than that he had so many millions of years of knowledge. But Picard was right-- he hadn't proven any such thing. Not like they'd given him a chance. One stupid mistake and LaForge had written him off, even though his mistake _had_ given the engineer an insight into a practical answer. But he had another chance now.

He didn't have time to figure out this washing thing. He had to do research, prepare himself with an understanding of what Picard's little tugboat could do so he could come up with ideas that would blow Picard away. But apparently he _had_ to take the time, or he'd smell bad, and that would be hideously humiliating. Would it have killed someone in Sickbay to point out this little issue last night, when he'd had nothing better to do than stare at the ceiling wondering why he wasn't falling asleep, with the fear of the Calamarain -- and the meeting he'd been told Picard wanted first thing in the morning about it -- pounding through him? Now he had to waste _useful_ time, time he was supposed to be coming up with ideas, and he hadn't the faintest idea how he was supposed to do this anyway, and no time to figure it out. Why couldn't someone have told him how the equipment worked? Or, well, anything about it? Bathing had throughout human history generally involved filling a basin with water, but there was no such basin in his bathroom, only a stall. How the hell was he supposed to do this?

Okay. Simple chemistry. Human bad smells were caused by bacteria that lived on their skin. Therefore, kill the bacteria, and the smell would be gone. Isopropyl alcohol would kill virtually anything. He ordered some of that from the replicator and poured it on himself, whereupon he learned two things: firstly, that it smelled just as bad as his own bad smell, and secondly, that it hurt horribly when it touched certain parts of his skin, the parts that were red and sore and looked damaged. That was no good. He tried hydrogen peroxide instead. That didn't smell as bad, but it also hurt. Chlorine solution had a strong smell and burned his skin. Finally, he asked the computer for help identifying a scentless solvent which would remove bacteria from his skin without irritating it. Using that, water from the tap in the bathroom, and a square cloth of a kind he remembered humans using in their cleansing rituals, he wiped his entire body off piecemeal and then ordered odor suppressors from the replicator. They turned out to be translucent wafers that melted when pressed against the skin. He papered his entire body with them, including sticking half a dozen in his hair.

The skin of his face had turned prickly. Ugh, facial hair. He couldn't remember what modern human males did about that particular bane, and the concept of using a sharp razor anywhere near some of the most delicate skin he had horrified him. He'd have to ask Picard what men did about that nowadays. Later.

There was something wrong with his mouth, and something wrong with his stomach. The wrong thing with his mouth was identifiable as a feeling of dryness. He'd suffered from it before -- twice now, after each time the Calamarain had attacked him -- and each time, he'd been given water to drink in Sickbay. So he got a glass of water out of the replicator and drank it. It was a relief to observe that his guess had been correct-- that felt good in his mouth and throat, and the unpleasant dryness went away.

The problem with his stomach seemed harder to solve. It _hurt._ It wasn't making noises or feeling empty anymore. Now it was making a burning feeling, like the chlorine solution had made on his skin but inside, and a tight feeling, as if muscles were spasming and clenching inside the same way they'd done in his back earlier. The idea of food had no appeal, and aside from food he had no idea how he was supposed to fix a pain in his stomach. He also didn't have time. Picard wouldn't be impressed if he spent all his time before the meeting trying to fix pains in his body instead of researching a solution. And it was far from the only pain-- there were discolored places all over his skin, red burning places or dully aching dark bluish and yellowish places, and there were still four stinging holes in the back of his hand from Guinan's fork -- he'd been too embarrassed to mention the injury after Crusher had treated him after the first Calamarain attack, given how humiliating his own behavior had been when he'd thought he was dying -- and his feet ached and his eyes burned and his back was hurting again and he kept seeing little dark spots when he moved rapidly and every so often he would get dizzy and lightheaded. This was probably just what it meant to be human, he thought, and had to fight off a wave of despair. No. He wasn't going to give in, he wasn't going to be distracted by all the stupid needs of this lump of meat he occupied now.

He needed ideas.

No, he didn't. He _had_ ideas. What he needed was to know if any of them were practical in human terms or not.

Q sat down at the computer terminal and began asking questions. He had forty-five minutes. He needed to make the best of them.

* * *

He didn't feel anywhere near ready when his door chimed. "It's Ensign Ngowa. I'm here to escort you to the main briefing room."

"Yeah, come in. I'm almost done," Q said distractedly. He wasn't. So much about petty human technologies he didn't know. He couldn't make a fool of himself like he had with the gravitational constant, not again. He needed to know what they could and couldn't do.

The security guard came in, then stopped dead and looked away at the wall. "Sir? You need to put some clothes on."

"Oh. Right. I forgot about that." Q sighed. "What a complete waste of my time. I could be continuing my research, and instead I have to take time out to _wash_, and drink water, and _now_ I have to find something to wear! How do you humans ever get anything done?"

"I'll be outside waiting," the guard said, completely unhelpfully. "I don't think Captain Picard would appreciate it if you were late."

No, probably not. As if he didn't already have enough to worry about. He was at least familiar with human clothing, but not with what the replicator would make him. Not to mention the difficulty of putting it on. An outfit like his Napoleonic uniform or the judge's robes would be much too complex. He was in a rush, he didn't have time to go on an extensive search for something attractive. _Why_ wouldn't the replicator give him a Starfleet uniform? It was the first thing he tried, and as Picard had warned him, it told him "That item is restricted." Wonderful. Okay, new plan.

Piece by piece he asked for bits of the uniform, since it had changed and was no longer a one-piece as it had been last time he was here-- the boots, the socks, the underwear, the pants. The replicator cooperated cheerfully until it came to the shirt. So only the shirt was actually restricted. Quickly Q went to the computer. "Show me all the red shirts the replicator can produce for humans, where the style, cut and shade of red are similar to the style, cut and color of a Starfleet uniform shirt."

The computer obliged, displaying the shirts on his screen. Ha. There was one very like a Starfleet uniform shirt, except that the shade was more of a magenta, the collar was a V-neck instead of raised, and the only black highlights were the edging of the collar and cuffs. That would work nicely. He put that on, and checked himself in the mirror. Euw. What was wrong with his _hair?_ And how could he fix it? It was disheveled and flat. He stuck his head out his door. "Hey, what do I do about my hair?"

The ensign glared at him. "The Captain is _waiting,_" he said, doing nothing to disguise his impatience.

"Yeah yeah yeah. Picard won't die if he twiddles his thumbs for a few minutes, and I'm not going anywhere with my hair this ugly. What do humans do to fix their hair?"

"Ever hear of a _hairbrush?_" Ngowa said through gritted teeth.

"Oh, yeah! That's right. Thanks." He stuck his head back into his room, demanded a hairbrush from the replicator, and proceeded to try to repair the damage to his hair. Ugh. It felt like there was some sort of sticky gunk in it-- belatedly he remembered the odor suppressors, and wondered if maybe he hadn't been supposed to put them in his hair. Picard hadn't warned him not to, but then, Picard _had_ no hair. And it was tangled, and it _hurt_ to brush it-- he kept yelping in pain as his attempt to get his hair back to some semblance of passability kept yanking on his scalp. And if he wanted to impress Picard with his intellect he probably couldn't leave the man waiting _too_ long. Finally Q gave up and stalked out the door. "This is as good as it gets," he grumbled. "Take me to Picard. I'll just have to live down the humiliation of being seen with hair like this."

* * *

When Q walked through the door to the briefing room-- ten minutes late, which had begun to really irritate everyone except Data-- Deanna Troi gasped. She had forgotten, in the hours since she'd last seen Q, how _loud_ his emotions were. Fear, anxiety, desperate need to prove himself, pride and insecurity tangled together, humiliation, an overriding need to hide all of this behind a façade of control and arrogance... and _hunger._ She didn't normally get physical sensations unless they were overwhelming. How could Q possibly be this hungry and not have done anything about it? He was certainly nothing remotely resembling a stoic.

"Do you need to get something to eat, Q?" she asked before the captain could give Q the tongue-lashing for being late that he wanted to and that would probably have no effect on Q whatsoever. She could feel Picard's annoyance spike and then reluctantly modulate into compassion-- he must be realizing why Deanna was asking, she thought.

Q waved a hand dismissively. "The thought repulses me." Humiliation, disgust, self-pity, impatience. "Let's get on with this."

"Yes, by all means, let's," Picard said. "Are you aware that you're ten minutes late, Q?"

Q made a face. "You know, these bodies do _not_ come with instruction manuals. And I _did_ think you'd want me to put in some time to familiarize myself with what you can and cannot do. Of course your limitations are so legion it might take the rest of my mortal lifespan to become fully aware of _all_ of them, but I thought I'd be of more use if I had the vaguest idea what you _can't_ do."

His voice, though slightly hoarse, was firm, strong and heavily sarcastic. It was all a lie. No one else in the room, Troi realized, had any idea how close Q was to breaking down completely, how ragged his edges were. When Picard had chastised him for being late, the emotions that had spiked through him had included genuine anguish, terror of abandonment, self-loathing... emotions she would never have expected Q to feel from a reprimand, especially one as mild as the one Picard had just delivered. Q was good at hiding his actual feelings, but he was human now, and humans had limits. And, on a purely selfish level, Troi didn't think she could stand to be sensing his incredibly loud emotions if he did in fact have a breakdown, given how little slack the others were likely to grant him and his hairtrigger sensitivity to humiliation.

She got up and went to the replicator. In her experience, people who were very hungry had far more chaotic, unreasonable emotional states than people who were well-fed, and food was popular at diplomatic conferences precisely because it calmed people down to be able to concentrate on their food rather than everyone else's opinion of them. Getting Q to eat when the very idea of it seemed to upset him badly would involve a good bit of manipulation, but she had a plan. "Troi pre-lunch conference platter 3, water pitcher, seven glasses," she murmured.

Behind her Picard was saying, "Well, that does show some industry. If it'll prevent you from suggesting we change the gravitational constant of the universe, I suppose I can forgive an extra ten minutes for research."

"Oh yeah, rub it in, Picard. I'm sure _you_ were simply brilliant in _your_ first day of being human."

"I was a newborn infant. You claim to have millions of years of experience. Rather a different situation, I would think."

Before this could escalate, Troi put the food, water and cups down in the middle of the table, and snagged a handful of carrots for herself, which she dunked in the cheese dip. She could feel the rest of the senior staff's curiosity-- they didn't usually have food at meetings on the _Enterprise._ "Sorry," she said with her mouth full. "Missed breakfast." She swallowed. "I thought I might not be the only one." She looked at LaForge, not Q.

LaForge grinned slightly. "I _did_ grab a bagel, but I think I only ate half of it. It's been a _long_ morning. Thanks, Counselor." He leaned forward. "What've we got? Mm, salami and cream cheese rolls."

Q was staring at the food. She could feel interest warring with disgust, and the fear of humiliation overwhelming the rest of it. So she'd guessed right. He was under too much stress, too much fear, to have an appetite, and didn't have the experience to realize that the acid pain in his abdomen meant he needed to eat anyway. It was quite possible that he hadn't eaten at all since coming aboard, slightly over 19 hours ago at this point -- Data had been his minder, and Data didn't eat. Maybe no one had thought to tell him he needed food. No, Beverly had mentioned Data taking him to Ten-Forward to eat -- but by now it was all over the ship that he and Guinan hated each other, and that they had had some sort of confrontation shortly before the Calamarain first attacked. Maybe the stress of being helpless in front of an old enemy, or of being threatened with death for the first time in his existence -- or both -- had killed his appetite until now.

Deliberately she ignored Q. Will was closed, too irritated with Q and the situation in general to be able to receive her. She looked at Picard instead, willing him to understand what she was up to, wishing just for a moment for full telepathy. "Captain, we have Brie dip."

Picard looked steadily at her for a moment, plainly trying to understand what she was doing, and then relaxed. "Thank you, Counselor," he said, leaning forward to pick up broccoli florets, ham and crackers. He dipped the broccoli in the cheese dip.

That was the last straw she'd needed. Q promptly imitated Picard precisely, except that he was considerably less decorous about actually eating his food-- as soon as he bit into one of the crackers he began stuffing the rest of the food into his mouth as fast as he could chew it. Troi had been counting on that reaction, though perhaps not on Q's lack of table manners-- once he actually tasted food, she'd guessed, his starved body would recognize how badly he needed it, and then his natural drive to avoid pain and experience pleasant sensations would take over. It was obvious that that was happening. He picked up one or two of every kind of food on the platter, his emotions shifting entirely to curiosity about and obsession with the food, and began eating them as if he were starving, which, she knew, he was. Now he should be able to calm himself down, she thought. Already the desperate, unpleasant edge of terror and despair was toning down.

Beverly and Will each took glasses of water and a few crackers, more to be polite to Troi than out of hunger. LaForge snagged a few more salami cream cheese rolls and then sat back. It was obvious to everyone at the table by now that if they didn't take the food they wanted Q would eat it. Will and Worf, neither of whom actually wanted the food for themselves, were the most offended by the behavior, but they all knew Troi well enough to interpret her satisfied smile as an indication that she'd been working toward what was happening, the whole time. Q, lacking anything remotely resembling empathy, even on a basic human level, didn't seem to realize that he'd been manipulated or that you weren't supposed to devour most of a communal platter; as soon as Troi had gotten the others to convince Q he could eat at all without seeming hopelessly weak, his natural selfishness had taken over.

He began talking while his mouth was still full of cheese. "Elementary physics indicates there's three factors that go into altering motion-- force, mass and time. We can't do much about the mass of the moon-- blasting it apart would be a fine solution if we were just trying to preserve the _planet_, but since that would have an unfortunate tendency to drop a meteor shower that would devastate _life_ on Bre'el IV, that angle's out."

"Q, don't talk with your mouth full," Picard said. "It's difficult to hear you and it looks disgusting."

Q swallowed his food. "Oh, like I knew that?" he snapped, face red enough to indicate his embarrassment even to the non-empaths in the room. "And Troi did it, anyway!"

"And I shouldn't have," Troi replied calmly.

"No one expects you to have known this, Q. That's why I'm telling you now."

"Well, fine." He dropped the rest of the food in his hands back onto the platter, plainly not realizing that that too was a violation of Human etiquette, and began to pace around the conference table. "Now, there's a limit to what we can do to increase force. I _will_ say there's a way you could draw in the Calamarain and use _them_ to give yourselves a power boost, but I doubt you'll want to do it."

"Would that harm them?" Crusher asked.

Q smirked. "'Would that harm them.' I'm talking about using them for _fuel_. Of _course_ it would harm them. In fact if we didn't annihilate them completely we'd have done it wrong."

"That's not acceptable, Q," Picard snapped. "I realize you have little regard for the lives of your enemies, but we will not murder _any_ sentient beings if there is any alternative."

Q put up his hands in a placating gesture. "Fine, fine, _mon capitaine._ I didn't think you'd go for that, but I'd be remiss, as your scientific advisor, to gloss over any of the possibilities by trying to guess ahead of time which ones you'd find ethically... questionable."

"Do you have any ideas that _aren't_ ethically questionable?" Riker asked sharply.

"I certainly hope so, because if you turn up your nose at _all_ my ideas I'm just going to have to conclude that you don't really _want_ to save the people on Bre'el IV." Will was obviously going to respond to that, but Q simply kept going, without letting anyone get a word in edgewise. "The other way we can increase force, of course, is to increase the number of levers. So if you can get some additional warp-capable ships in here to help out--"

Now Will had his opportunity to interrupt Q. "That's not helpful, Q," he said. "Bre'el IV hasn't _got_ any ships anywhere near as powerful as the _Enterprise_, and they're using them to ferry their people to the other planets in the system. And we're the only Starfleet vessel within a week's travel time of Bre'el IV. We've already sent out the call, and that's the soonest anyone can get here."

Q sneered. "I _know_ that," he said condescendingly. "Did I say anything about a Starfleet vessel? No, I was imagining you could start by contacting the Ferengi. Mind you, they'll want to charge you an arm and a leg for their help, but with an entire planet in danger I'm sure you Feddie types will consider cost no object."

"Q, there are no Ferengi vessels close enough to Bre'el IV to arrive in time to help," Data said.

Q's eyes widened. Troi got an impression of surprise, and then triumphant glee. "Oh, dear. You mean to tell me you don't _know_ about the Ferengi mining colony on the gas giant less than a day's travel from here? Let me guess. The Ferengi didn't tell you because for some reason it's not supposed to be there."

"Are you saying there's a Ferengi mining colony right in the middle of Federation space?" Picard asked. "If so, why haven't we noticed?"

"Maybe 'cause they're being _really_ careful. Let's face it, Picard, if there's profit to be made the Ferengi make excellent smugglers. And since the planet's so close to the Kaeloid territory I imagine the Bre'elians try to avoid going out to survey it, especially since their planetary fleet's so eensy weensy. You call the star Satos and the mining colony's on Satos IX. I imagine you can use the fact that their colony is illicit to blackmail the Ferengi into charging a reasonable price instead of a year of the gross planetary product of Bre'el IV or something. But do be sure you offer to pay them something outrageously high, even with the blackmail, or they'll do a terrible job, and with lives at stake I'm _sure_ you don't want that. The other thing you could do is ask the Kaeloids."

"The Kaeloids haven't allowed any contact with other worlds for 37 years," Will said weakly, dreading-- probably dreading what Q would say next.

"Yes, yes, but that was 37 _years_ ago. They have a new administration now, and they've been debating opening up to very limited contact, mostly for trade purposes. Offer them a chance to open contact with a mission of mercy, which will save their close neighbors and put the mighty Federation in their debt, and they may go for it. Especially since that black hole isn't going away and it's on a trajectory that'll bring it into Kaeloid space before too long. They may need a return favor one of these days."

"Well." Captain Picard was feeling both pleasantly surprised and slightly smug, as if he'd achieved something he'd been trying to pull off. "We had no idea the Kaeloids would be responsive to a request for help. That is very useful. Mr. LaForge, would extra ships help?"

"They sure would. Like Q said, adding more levers would give us more force to push with." LaForge was _very_ surprised, much more so than the Captain. Obviously the notion that Q could actually be useful was something of a shock to him. Troi hoped it'd be a pleasant shock once the initial edge of being angry at Q wore off.

"So glad to know you agree with me on the workings of elementary physics," Q said with a sneer.

"You said the vectors we should be increasing are force, mass and time. Did you have any ideas on what to do with time?" Picard asked, obviously impatient with Q's need to insult people.

"Time actually has me at a bit of a loss. With additional levers, given the success you've had so far, it's obvious we can push the moon back to its proper place in five days or so. The problem--"

"Wait a minute," LaForge interrupted. "Our calculations indicated we'd get the moon back to its proper place in seven _hours_ of steady pushing! There's no way adding extra ships would extend the time."

Q looked at him as if he were an insect, his emotions shifting to genuine contempt. "I realize you can't _change_ the gravitational constant of the universe, LaForge. But you know there _is_ one, right? That gravity doesn't go away because you click your heels together three times and chant 'There's no place like orbit'?"

"Yeah, I know that," LaForge returned angrily. "And the whole _point_ to this is to push against gravity to get the moon back into its proper orbit!"

"Whereupon that black hole will just drag it back into Bre'el IV. Or did you think that moving the moon would magically make the black hole that caused this go away? Oh, wait, _I_ know. You were so obsessed with mocking me for my little mistake about your capabilities that you completely _forgot_ that I had told you to examine the cause and not the symptom."

"You said there was probably a black hole, and you didn't say anything about it pulling the moon back out of orbit, and I ran the calculations. Based on the gravitational stresses we're currently seeing, once we push the moon back into orbit it should be fine."

"Yes, for about six hours. We're not talking about a black hole eating Bre'el, we're talking about one passing through several dozen light years from here. The gravitational effect isn't huge but it _is_ there, it _will_ destabilize Bre'el IV's satellite orbit again, and it'll keep doing it until it gets far enough away to stop, at which point it will go bother someone else. Don't you know math?"

"Q, based on our gravitometric scans there is no evidence of force continuing to apply to the Bre'el moon. Once restored to its proper orbital trajectory it should be able to maintain a stable orbit," Data said.

"Your gravitometric scans couldn't even tell you there _is_ a black hole. You had no idea what's causing this."

"You have only conjecture--"

"Look. _Here_. You're an android, you're not supposed to be this stupid. I suppose the humanity's finally starting to rub off?" Q stalked over to the screen in front of Data and poked it in the far corner. "See here? Black hole thataway. Did you even bother to _look?_"

Data touched his combadge. "Commander Data to Astrometrics."

"Ensign Dukakis here, sir."

"Please run a detailed gravitometric scan of coordinates 00A2E-17B5-7820F."

"Aye, sir."

Data looked up at Q. "I believe that such a scan should resolve this dispute."

"You should have done this hours ago," Q needled. "But then, I'm not surprised that humans-- or androids who aspire to be humans-- would lose sight of the big picture in the middle of the piddling details."

"Q, Data saved your _life_," Beverly snapped. "Insulting him is incredibly rude even for you."

"Oh, and I should fail to point out that he's being stupid because his poor wittle feewings would be hurt? Oh, wait, he hasn't got any. Maybe I should just keep my incredibly rude mouth shut and let millions of people on Bre'el IV _die_ to protect Data's nonexistent feelings, is that it?"

"I am not offended at Q's behavior," Data said reasonably. "If I have made an oversight in my study of the problem, I would certainly welcome a correction. However, I do not see how it is possible for a being with a human brain to glance at a display, while distracted, and immediately deduce a gravitational effect so subtle that the scans we have thus far performed could not detect it."

"That's because you're being stupid," Q said.

Deanna closed her eyes, trying futilely to shut out the outraged emotions from everywhere in the conference room, and hoped desperately that the gravitometric scan would prove Q wrong. Empaths did not generally take pleasure in others' humiliation, but oh, she wanted to see his face, even if it meant having to put up with feeling what he felt.

Data's combadge beeped. "Transmitting the scans to you now, sir."

"Thank you." Data looked down at his screen. "Ah. Geordi, you will wish to see this."

"What-- Well, I'll be damned." LaForge looked at Q with just the tiniest trace of the apprehension they'd all felt around Q when he'd been omnipotent. "How did you _do_ that?"

"It's not that hard when you're billions of years old," Q said smugly.

Tiredly Picard said, "I take it there is, in fact, a black hole."

"Yes, sir. A Hawking quantum black hole, right where Q said it would be. It's so small and so far away, we never noticed it, but he's right. It's creating a very small, but steady, variation in the gravitational pull that's going to knock the moon out of orbit every time we put it there, for... damn." He looked at Q again. This time his emotional state bordered on awe. "Five days. You figured all this out from looking at the screen while you were whining about your back?"

Q preened. "Yes. And if you'd actually shown me any consideration for my injured state instead of behaving as if I had hurt myself _solely_ to inconvenience you, I might have had a chance to tell you so."

"I am impressed. The calculations required to derive such a conclusion from the information you were given are incredibly complex. I did not even think to perform such calculations myself. I am astonished that any human brain could perform such lengthy calculations so quickly."

"That, Data, is where the 'being smarter than you' comes in. I _didn't_ do any calculations to see this at first-- you're quite right, you and your positronic brain can certainly calculate absolutely anything faster than this slow piece of meat I have in my cranium. But I've been working with gravitational forces on a very intimate level for, oh, longer than you can possibly imagine. I had the intuition and the experience to tell me exactly where to look... and it _was_ in the math, if you knew which calculations to run. You could have brute-forced your way into it by running every conceivable calculation, but I think even with the speed of your brain you have better things to do... and neither you, nor anyone else here, knew where to look." His smugness was unbearably loud, but at least it was drowning out the terror and anxiety.

"So even with additional ships we won't be able to push Bre'el IV's moon back for five days?" Riker asked.

"No, you won't be able to go away and congratulate yourselves on a job well done for five days. You can get the moon back into orbit within ten hours once you start pushing from perigee-- not seven, we didn't push it far enough to give ourselves as much leeway as we had last time-- assuming the Calamarain doesn't attack again. Then, with extra ships from the Kaeloids and the Ferengi, you can keep it there for five days without overly straining your engines. Given the severity of the gravitational stresses, we can't take longer than three days to get that moon back into orbit, even if we keep it from crashing into the planet with the occasional push, or the planet will start crumbling. We'll have to worry about the effect of the black hole _on_ the planet, as well; it's small, but with a moon yanking it in one direction and a black hole yanking it in the other we're going to expect to see severe tidal stresses all throughout the next five days. If they can evacuate their people to the station on Bre'el VII, so much the better."

"They're evacuating to Bre'el III. It's terraformed," Picard said. "The people can breathe there and it has the capacity. It's also much closer."

Q smacked his forehead with the back of his hand in a melodramatic gesture. "Oh, spare me the stupidity. Bre'el III is on _this_ side of the sun. Bre'el VII is on the _other_ side. Planets on _this_ side of the sun are going to have the same problems with _their_ planetary satellites. The only reason there aren't already three moons crashing into Bre'el III is that there are three of them, and so far they've kept some stability by tugging on each other. That is not going to last. I give it about two days before Bre'el III's moons start crashing into their planet."

"Q, there are half a million people already evacuated to Bre'el III!"

"Then you really should have asked me this a lot sooner. We've wasted nearly a whole day, what with throwing me in the brig, letting me get attacked by the Calamarain twice, _wasting_ my mind on trying to manually control the _field_ output..."

"Q! This is not the time for recriminations. The station on Bre'el VII does not have the capacity for the population of Bre'el III!"

"Well, then, I guess how many of the Bre'elians will live will be partially dependent on how fast they can build space stations."

"That's just typical of you, Q," Will snapped. "Could you be any _more_ dismissive about half a million lives? Oh, wait, their species is always suffering and dying, is that it?"

Q pressed a fist to his chest as if struck, obviously posing. "I have been remiss," he gasped. "Oh, the agony of it! Of _course_ I was supposed to weep tears for the people in the Bre'el system. Boo-hoo, boo-hoo. I think I'll stand here and cry for their tragic plight and not try to _do_ anything about it, because it's so much more important to express my deep heartfelt sorrow for their impending doom than to _try to save their lives._"

"You're not fooling anyone. You don't give a damn about trying to save _anyone's_ life but your own; you just want to impress everyone with how smart you are."

That wasn't entirely true. A large part of Q's motivation, of course, was exactly that, but Troi could tell from his emotional state at the accusation that for some reason Q genuinely _did_ want to save those lives. Perhaps his own brush with death had taught him to be more considerate of mortal lives. "Will, that's not entirely true," she said. "Q actually does seem to care about helping those people."

She was totally unprepared for Q's reaction. A white-hot spike of hate and rage, directed at _her_, slammed into her. He whipped around to face her and shouted, "Stop _doing_ that! You need to broadcast every little vagary of my emotional state to _everyone?_ How would you like it if someone transported off your _clothes_ in public?"

"You didn't seem overly concerned at being nude in public," Picard pointed out.

"Yeah, because this isn't me. This is just a body; all I care about is that it's not ugly." He tapped his head. "_This_ is me. My thoughts and my emotional state are me. And if Troi's going to rape me I'd prefer she at least have some modicum of discretion about it!"

She hadn't thought Q would really be able to anger her. She saw through him too well, she was a trained professional, she understood how badly he was hurting. It didn't matter. Furiously Troi retorted, "I can't _stop_ hearing your emotions, Q, you're _screaming_ them at me!"

"So don't scream them to the rest of the population!"

"I was _trying_ to help you!"

"Stripping people naked in public is an awfully strange way to _help_ them!"

"Enough!" Picard banged his hand on the table, startling Troi. "We are here to help the people of the Bre'el system, not shout at each other. Counselor, please refrain from revealing Q's emotional state publicly. Number One, Q's motives are irrelevant as long as he is helpful. And Q, if you don't want everyone to know exactly how you feel, having a hysterical screaming fit in a conference is not the way to go about it! Sit down and take a drink of water."

"Why?"

"Because that will help you calm down, and I'd rather not have to ask Dr. Crusher to tranquilize you."

Q's eyes narrowed. "No tranquilizers," he said, and gulped down half a glass of water. "I'm _hardly_ hysterical, Picard, but I think I do have a right to be _angry._ You people claim you're so much more ethical than I am, yet _I_ never altered anyone's emotional state against their will, or revealed their personal secrets to everyone. I could have. I could have easily, but _I_ knew it was wrong. Why are you oh-so-moral humans incapable of grasping that?"

"We're having a cultural disagreement," Picard said tiredly. "Our culture doesn't consider such things as highly unethical as apparently yours does. That doesn't make one of us wrong and the other right, although it does mean we will do our best to honor your belief system in respect to you, as long as you are attempting to honor ours. Now, can we get back to the issue at hand? If the black hole is going to crash Bre'el III's moons into it before we are able to finish protecting Bre'el IV, we will need to find a way both to evacuate half a million people off Bre'el III and to help people evacuate off the fault lines and tidal regions of Bre'el IV."

"Yeah, okay, I've been thinking about that. It's going to be very difficult but if we don't run into one of your technology limitations, it's doable. Firstly, you _do_ have energy-to-matter conversion technology, right? Isn't that how your replicators work?"

"That is the fundamental principle behind both replicators and transporters," Data agreed.

"Well, that's good, because we'd be completely screwed if you didn't. What they need to do is make about five or six matter-antimatter reactors, about the size and power of your warp core. I'd suggest doing it on Bre'el III, so if they screw it up they don't destroy their entire species. Hooking those together and linking your transporter and replicator technology somehow, they can output space stations. Or pieces of space stations to be assembled later. Use the transporters to get them out of the gravity well, being very careful not to disrupt the orbits of the moons since anything that makes the orbit so much as wobble will accelerate Bre'el III's untimely death, fill them with people, and then get them to Bre'el VII."

"Okay. That idea has a lot of problems," LaForge said. "We might be able to work around some of them but others, I just don't see how. The real big one is the reactors. Antimatter doesn't exactly grow on trees."

"Well, why not? You have replicators."

"Replicators can't make antimatter, Q."

"Why _not?_ If you're converting from energy to matter it's just as easy to convert from energy to antimatter... though you'd better have your magnetic bubble in place, I suppose. Can you transport through a magnetic force field?"

"If we don't care about maintaining the structural integrity of what's going into it, yeah, but Q, we _can't_ transport, replicate, or do diddly with antimatter other than carrying it around in magnetic bottles."

"There's no good reason for that. Your technology is obviously... well, I was going to say primitive, but since that goes without saying, obviously not working at the efficiency it could have."

"We analyze matter and store its patterns, and then we read those patterns out. We can't just make stuff up that we didn't have before."

"And this process is controlled by computer, right?"

"Well, yes."

"So _reprogram_ the computer to output the quarks with oppositional spins and voila, antimatter. You don't have to change the basic pattern of the matter, just reverse it. Can't your computers do something simple like that?"

"It is a novel idea. I do not believe it has ever been tried," Data said. "But in principle, it may well work."

"Of course it'll work. Computers do what you tell them to do. If they're too stupid to do it, reprogram them. The basic concept behind converting energy to antimatter is _identical_ to the conversion of energy to matter. You should be able to take the same basic template and flip it. I do it all the time. ...Did it all the time." Q's mood took a sudden lurch downward at his misphrase.

"So you're saying we could just transport some random rocks, translate them into digital instead of analog, reprogram the computer to output the quarks backwards... the transporter works at the atomic level, though... but we _might_ be able to extrapolate the quarks and then output them backwards... Damn. We'd need an incredible amount of disk space, maybe ten or twenty times what we use for a transporter, but I think we _could_ do it!" LaForge's unease was turning into excitement.

"Well, _you_ don't want to do it. Work out the plans, but make the Bre'elians actually do it. If there are any missteps the explosion would be... notable. You want to do that on a planet, and preferably, a mostly unpopulated one."

"Okay, so how do we get enough space stations that 500 thousand people could fit in them across the entire solar system onto the other side of the sun?" It wasn't a challenge, but a genuine question. By now LaForge's emotional state had switched entirely from seeing Q as a complete nuisance to looking up to him as a guru.

"I don't know yet. Can you boost your transporter signals?"

"Not across that distance. It's an analog signal-- every time you boost it you lose some signal to noise. Not what you want when you're transporting people."

"Then the best bet might be an artificial wormhole. Which would be very tricky, going through space occupied by a sun and being tugged by a black hole, but _might_ be something you could manage. Particularly with the power from those five or six reactors."

"You know how to make an artificial wormhole?"

"Of course. The only question is, do I know how to make an artificial wormhole with tools you have lying around the house?"

"Would we be able to maintain transport integrity through a wormhole?" Data asked.

"If you do it right. We'd test it with nonliving objects first, obviously. Original organic matter, preferably, _not_ replicated-- they must have some on Bre'el III or maybe IV if they replicate all their food on III. A dead tree, or some dead animals. Then we do live volunteers. I can't guarantee that we'd be able to stabilize it using your technology, though, so when you ring up the Kaeloids, make sure they send some extra ships for transport duty, maybe an empty ore freighter or two."

"Will we be able to do any of these things if the Calamarain continue to attack?" Worf asked.

Q's mood shifted drastically, depression and fear dominating his emotional mixture. "That was what I was going to say about time, before we got sidetracked by LaForge being stupid. The problem is that the Calamarain aren't going to want to let us do any of this. I read up a bit on your shielding technology, and I don't think you can keep them out indefinitely. They're very intelligent. Well, actually they're short-sighted idiots, but as far as being able to solve problems that have nothing to do with their own political structure, they're very intelligent. They'll figure out how to get through your shielding sooner or later if they have to tear your ship apart to do it."

"You know them best," Picard said. "Is there any way we can negotiate with them?"

Q looked at the table and tapped his fingers on it , smiling nervously, embarrassment and fear coloring his emotions. "Well, um, you know, diplomacy isn't actually my... strong suit. If I knew how to negotiate with the Calamarain, we wouldn't be _in_ this situation." He looked up and met Picard's eyes. "That being said, if we can solve the issue of enabling you to _talk_ to them... I can't guarantee they'll talk to you, given what snobby little bigots they are about your form of life, but if _anyone_ could get the Calamarain to negotiate I have faith it would be you and your people, Picard. So, do you have any distance telepaths? Not Vulcans or empaths?"

Troi hadn't actually expected her own specialty to be invoked outside of monitoring Q. Surprised, she said, "We don't, but are you saying the Calamarain communicate telepathically? Because if so, it's possible I might be able to open communications with them."

"I thought you were just an empath."

"Not exactly... It makes more sense to say I am a partial telepath. With another telepath, I can have a full telepathic communication; it's just that my power can't bridge the distance between minds for reading anything more precise than emotions."

"Well, of course with a full telepath you can have a telepathic conversation. That doesn't prove anything."

"I mean that because I understand how telepathic communication works, I can carry my end of a full telepathic conversation as long as someone else makes the bridge, even if that someone doesn't have any experience communicating with my form of life or has a very alien outlook."

"Interesting. You're saying mortal minds without full telepathic power can manage full telepathic conversation if they are experienced with it?"

"Yes. But I'd need the Calamarain to make initial contact."

"No, you don't. We'd just need a telepathic amplifier."

"Do you know how to make one?" Picard asked.

Q grimaced. "Oh,. yeah, sure, Picard. I just snap my fingers. Oh, wait, that doesn't work anymore. I guess the answer would be 'no' then."

"I've never heard of such a thing, and if there were telepathic amplifiers I'm positive Betazed would be using them," Troi said.

"No, you wouldn't. You're far too nice."

Troi blinked. It wasn't at all like Q to gratuitously compliment people. "Can you explain that?"

"The Vulcans had them, pre-Surak. Because the Vulcans, pre-Surak, were incredibly nasty, dangerous creatures. Not like Klingons--" he waved a dismissive hand in Worf's direction-- "they were brutal, warlike, _and_ highly intelligent. Picard, if you contact the Vulcan High Command and explain that you're going to have several million people dead unless you can get the specifications for a telepathic amplifier, they might give it to you. They'll hem and haw and they might even pretend such specs don't exist, at which point I'd hope you'd call them bald-faced liars to their faces. You'll probably have to agree to classify the data out the wazoo, and it may help if you tell them the only people you'll give access to it would be a Betazoid and a superintelligent alien from a highly advanced culture."

"Q, if such a thing must be classified in that way... Are you saying that in your opinion the Federation as a whole cannot safely use such technology?"

Q snorted. "Are you kidding? You'd rip yourselves to shreds. After taking on and conquering the Klingons, Cardassians and Romulans. No, of _course_ your species isn't ready for this kind of technology."

"Then we can't in good conscience request it from the Vulcans. Not if it's a technology that presents such ethical dangers--"

Q shook his head. "No, no, no. I said your species isn't ready for it, Jean-Luc, but I wouldn't have brought it up at all if I didn't think I could trust _you_ with the technology. And your people. I don't know anyone better at resisting the temptation of power than you are, and far be it for your little trained minions to do anything _you'd_ find ethically questionable. I mean, Riker over there turned down _omnipotence_ because you told him to."

"I turned it down because I didn't want it."

"You turned it down because you wanted to stay human, because Picard would be mad at you if you gave up your humanity. I was there, Riker, don't tell me you didn't want it. You turned it down because of _him._" He jerked a thumb at Picard. "So no, I don't think there's an ethical problem here. We'll use the tech to try to make contact with the Calamarain and get them to quit attacking, and then you'll destroy it and not tell Starfleet you ever had it in the first place so they don't get tempted to lean on the Vulcans."

Picard was shocked. Troi knew why without needing detailed telepathy. The fact that Q had basically, offhandedly, told Picard that he was more ethically advanced than the Federation in general seemed terribly out of character, except that he'd said it with absolute sincerity-- not the fake hyperbolic sincerity Q employed sarcastically, but the genuine article. And it wasn't just in his emotional state; it sounded in his voice, in the almost casual way he gave the information, as if it was just another one of the facts he was disgorging. Picard raised his eyebrows. "I had no idea you thought so highly of us."

"Oh, come on, Picard. You turned down both omnipotence and then the help of an omnipotent being until I pushed you into having no choice. Why do you think I came here instead of handing myself over to some humans who didn't have personal grudges against me for... um, tormenting them a bit? I _still_ don't think it's a good idea to be helpless in the hands of humans, even modern humans, as a general idea. Your species is just not as advanced as you think they are. Except that you never noticed, because _you_ are that advanced."

"I'm finding it hard to believe that you genuinely think that I personally am some sort of exemplar of the best of humanity."

"Believe what you want, but I'm telling you I have absolute confidence that you and your crew wouldn't misuse telepathic amplification technology. Of course--" his voice became conspiratorial-- "this is hardly the most dangerous thing I know. I'm chock full of little tidbits of information like this. Do _you_ trust that you can safely hand me over to some starbase, and that both Starfleet and my personal ethics will keep me from giving you people knowledge you aren't advanced enough to wield yet?"

She felt Picard wince inside, and could guess why. They were all loyal to Starfleet, and yet there did seem to be some number of admirals who were happy to throw Starfleet ethics out the window if it won the Federation a military or economic advantage. As for trusting to Q's ethics, it was laughable-- he was only now beginning to show any evidence that he _had_ any. On the other hand, the logical conclusion to Q's argument was that he would have to remain aboard the _Enterprise_ unless Picard was willing to trust him.

"We'll discuss that later. What can we offer the Calamarain to get them to leave you alone? You may have to be more specific about what exactly you did to them. 'Nothing bizarre, nothing grotesque' gives us little to go on."

"I'm not _completely_ sure there's anything you _can_ offer them. The thing is, they're quite short-sighted and prejudiced. They'll think of you as inferior life forms--"

"Like you do?" Will asked.

"No, Riker, _I_ talk to you. They might not be willing to talk at all even if Troi can open communication with them. If they are willing to talk... well, they think of themselves as very driven by justice and fairness. Even though they're not, but that's beside the point. You _might_ be able to point out to them the millions of mortals who will end up dead if they keep trying to kill me now, and maybe they'll take that seriously. Or maybe they won't-- like I said, they haven't got very much respect for your form of life."

"But what did you do? Can we convince them to perhaps put you on trial rather than outright killing you? Can we offer them some recompense?"

"How should I know? And no, they already put me on trial. In absentia, but they don't have the legal concept that that's a bad idea. At the time I thought it was hilarious and kept popping in to make fun of the proceedings, but... well, anyway, they've already had a trial. And if you absolutely have to know what I did, I revealed a truth they'd rather not have known about themselves which ended up destroying their political system, because they were too stupid to adapt to it and they, like many lesser species, are fond of blaming the messenger."

"That doesn't sound like a good reason to kill you," Picard said, frowning.

Q shrugged. "The Calamarain obviously disagree."

"Are you sure there's no more to the story than that? You implied earlier that you tormented them for amusement."

"I _did_ torment them for amusement. You have no idea how hilarious it is when a species is forced to confront its own hypocrisy and stupidity, and while it's certainly entertaining and unpredictable when they pass the tests, it's even funnier when they don't, and their own idiocy causes them to suffer." He started tapping his fingers on the table again. "I'm not a one-trick pony, Picard, and regardless of what you think, my tormenting _you_ wasn't random fun either. I do these things for a reason. Mostly, I admit, because watching people squirm when they realize they have to rethink everything they know is marvelously entertaining. But it was also my job. The Continuum didn't throw me out for tormenting people, it threw me out for tormenting people in ways it deemed... not very useful."

"You liked your job too much," Will said.

"They said I was excessive. I suppose it's essentially the same thing."

"Is there anything we can offer them to make reparations for what you did?"

"You know, I heard you the first time you asked that, and the answer isn't any different now. I don't _know._ I am not a negotiator. I never bothered to ask the Calamarain if there was anything I could do to make nice with them, let alone anything mortal humanoids could do."

"It's your life at stake, Q," Beverly said. "Saying you don't know and giving up is only going to hurt you."

"Yes, yes, I know what's at stake, Doctor. Believe me, quite aside from the whole dying thing, I have no desire to end up in _your_ incompetent hands being glared at for having the temerity to get myself almost killed, again. But you can't expect me to be able to answer this question any more than I should expect you to be able to answer the question of how to travel to an alternate timeline and end up in exactly the spot you wanted to be in its spacetime. It's not my field. I have never conducted a negotiation in billions of years of existence and I have no idea what the Calamarain could possibly consider adequate recompense for my transgressions, aside from the obvious. Which I'd really rather we avoided offering them as long as possible."

"We aren't going to offer you up to them, Q," Picard said. "Humanity does not work that way."

"Yes, well, I sincerely hope that that remains an option, but I'm very good at math."

"Well, that's going to have to be our first priority. How quickly do you think you can put together the specifications for a working telepathic amplifier if we can get the Vulcans to provide what they have?"

Q shrugged again. "I have no way of knowing. But if it isn't a few hours then I suspect it would become a moot point, and as little fun as this whole living as a mortal thing has been thus far I imagine dying is considerably less fun, so... I'd try to get it done within a few hours. I'll need Troi, or whoever we're actually going to use the thing on."

"I think I would be most appropriate," Troi said, although privately she was cringing. While the idea of working with telepathic amplification was both exciting and frightening, the idea of working in close quarters with Q was, well, almost as bad as a visit from her mother. What she really needed was a telepathic _dampener_, to shut him out. Except that that wouldn't shut him _up_, unfortunately.

"All right. I'll contact the Ferengi and the Kaeloids. Mr. LaForge, Mr. Data, keeping the moon moving has to be our first priority, but if you have the opportunity see what use you can make of Q's suggestions regarding creating antimatter reactors."

"We will need more dilithium crystals," Data said. "Perhaps you can negotiate with the Kaeloids or Ferengi to purchase some, sir."

Troi could tell how little Picard liked the idea of having to purchase dilithium from the Ferengi. "I'll do what I can. Number One, please contact the science council and tell them what Q told us about the instability of Bre'el III's moons. Have Astrometrics confirm it first, but I suspect it will turn out to be true. Tell them we are working on means to evacuate people across the solar system, but in the meantime they should _stop_ all evacuations to Bre'el III, re-route any ships to Bre'el VII, and move as many of their own people out of the tidal and fault line regions to more stable ground on Bre'el IV itself."

"Don't these people have any more imagination than to name their planets 'fourth planet of our sun', 'third planet of our sun' and so forth?"

Picard sighed. "In their own language, I'm sure they do."

"So why does Betazed get to be Betazed and not Lannis III? Why don't you come from Sol III? For that matter why did the Vulcans let _you_ give them a name rather than insisting on their own name?"

"Q, we do not have time for a digression into linguistics. The Calamarain could return to attack at any moment."

"I've had an idea, actually," LaForge said. "I think we might be able to hold them off a bit better _if_ we can nest shielding. Counselor, Q, would you be able to work aboard a shuttle, or is the space too cramped?"

"Do they have replicators and full computer access?" Q asked.

"Yeah, they have both."

"Then no, I don't see a problem. Their décor is horrible, but then, the same can be said for your entire ship."

"I see," Data said. "You believe we can modulate the shields out of synchronization with each other, so that if the Calamarain were able to penetrate one they would be unable to remodulate to penetrate the second immediately, thus giving us time to block them. I believe that is an excellent idea, Geordi."

"Right, and if we put Q aboard the shuttle and then put up the _shuttle's_ shields, it ought to buy us some time."

"Yes, that is what I said."

Q shrugged. "You know your technology. If you say you can nest your shields I'm all for it."

"Very well then. Mr. LaForge, see to that. Everyone else, let's get started. The day isn't getting any younger," Picard said. "Counselor, take him down to the shuttle bay. I'll contact the Vulcans first and see if I can get you what you need to get started."


	2. Working In Groups

Oddly enough, Q was almost easier to deal with one on one. It wasn't as if his emotions were any less loud, but without an entire roomful of people for him to agitate, there was no feedback loop of negative emotion feeding on negative emotion, spiraling down.

"The thing you have to understand," he said, "is that the Calamarain are absolutely rigid. It's depressing, really, how often species biologically dependent on chaotic systems are completely obsessed with having overly orderly lives. They've got the freedom of all of space to range in, they have no shortage of food, they have almost no natural predators, so of course they had to create problems for themselves with rigid social stratification, obsessive behavior and an inordinate focus on the concept of justice, which, to them, means that anyone they don't like should die painfully-- not that humans find that concept alien either, but at least you people are more likely to admit that what you want is revenge."

"What do they want? What do they enjoy? There has to be something we can offer them, to form some basis for negotiation."

"They're fairly self-sufficient. I don't know. About the only thing I can think you might manage is to appeal to that sense of justice and fairness. Even with their arrogance they should be able to grasp that letting several million people die because they want one miscreant's head on a stick -- so to speak-- can hardly be considered fair and righteous. Unless, of course, they really don't care at all about humanoid life. Which they might not."

They reached the shuttle bay. Q's mouth quirked in an almost-smile. "The shuttle bay. I'm getting that déjà vu feeling all over again."

Troi smiled. It was nice to see that he was capable of having a sense of humor that didn't rely on mocking or humiliating other people. "I hope what we're about to do will be a slightly more positive experience for you than trying to kill yourself."

"It wouldn't be very easy to get worse than that, I admit." He glanced back at her. "Not that being alive as a human is an overwhelmingly wonderful experience, you understand."

"No, but I'm sure such an ancient and intelligent entity as yourself will be able to adapt."

This time his look was sharper. "Are you mocking me, Counselor?"

"Not at all. I'm quite serious. I know it's been hard for you, but you've made a lot of progress in just one day. You were very helpful at that conference back there, you know. The Captain's quite pleased."

One thing about the intensity of Q's emotions-- he responded just as strongly to positive feelings as negative ones. All he said was, "Really," with a note in his voice that indicated that he might or might not believe her. What he felt, though, was a burst of brilliant happiness, almost joy. For some reason Q genuinely did seem want the Captain to think highly of him; he'd actually been serious when he'd said that Picard was the closest thing he had to a friend, and Troi was starting to think he'd been serious the last time he'd shown up when he'd wanted to join the crew, too. "I'm getting the hang of this working in groups thing, I think."

"I suppose it helps that 'consultant' is a role in a group that makes you the center of attention."

"Well, it's a good sight better than trying me out in the role of 'trained monkey.'"

They reached the shuttle LaForge had directed them to and climbed aboard. Since Q already had some experience working with force fields from his brief stint in Engineering, he took on the role of setting up the shielding. He worked the controls with sufficient adeptitude and confidence that Troi wondered if knowing how the technology worked was something he carried with him from being omniscient, and if so, why hadn't he carried any knowledge of how to be human? Surely an understanding of how being human worked would have been more relevant to an omniscient being studying humans than a knowledge of human technology would be, and she already knew he couldn't possibly remember _everything_ he had known when he was a Q. It simply wouldn't have fit inside a human brain.

She asked him. "How is it you know how to set up shielding on a shuttlecraft? I can't imagine it would have been very important for an omnipotent being to know to operate our technology."

Q shrugged. "Once Data showed me the basics of how your controls worked, the rest was blatantly obvious to a person of my intellect. Your shields are primitive and pathetic, but once one understands the basic logic behind the design of your controls, it's not hard to figure out how to set them up." He swiveled in his chair. "Computer, pull up human, Vulcan and Betazoid scientific articles on telepathy and send them to this screen here."

"Requested operation will take 97 hours to complete. Specify detailed parameters."

"Damn. Why have you people never invented direct telepathic feeds from your data systems?... Because you're pathetic primitives, that's why. Computer, prioritize anything relating to differential strengths in telepathy, amplifying telepathy, blocking telepathy, or promoting telepathy in non-telepathic species or individuals."

"Acknowledged."

"Why do you need to read our articles? Wouldn't telepathy be something you understand from your experience as a Q?"

"Sure, but I need to know how much _you_ know. The Vulcans won't send us fully working specifications, you know. They'll give us something crippled. I'll need to know the language you people use to describe telepathic operations so I can talk to _you_, assuming you're of any use whatsoever, and so that I can figure out what the Vulcans left out and put it back in."

"Why would they be so fearful of giving us a telepathic amplifier? With so many lives at stake..."

"The lives at stake is why they'd give us anything at all. I don't think you can overestimate how frightened the Vulcans are of their own technology. Telepathic amplification is to them what genetic engineering is to humans, for much the same reasons. In fact they're so frightened of this stuff that they've actually gone through historical periods of pretending they don't _have_ telepathy, which is rather equivalent to humans of the Victorian era pretending women didn't have orgasms."

"They thought women didn't have _orgasms?_ You're joking."

"Look it up. It's your planet. Well, half your planet anyway."

"I was raised on Betazed, so no, it's my father's planet. But that's shocking. How could they have ever believed such a thing?"

"You'd be amazed what you can accomplish with a little bit of fear, a little bit of shame, the promotion of ignorance and a whole lot of self-righteousness."

"Do the Vulcans have cause to be so afraid?"

"In this case, no. The only thing _you'd_ misuse telepathic amplification for is to invade more people's privacy and violate the sanctity of their minds for your own prurient interests, which is exactly what full Betazoids do anyway so it's not like that would be a big shock to anyone."

"I do _not_ violate people's minds for my prurient interests, Q. It's my job."

"Great, so you're a professional rapist. That really makes me feel so much better."

Troi sighed. "You know, it really doesn't make it any easier to work with someone if you call them a rapist. Particularly when you know perfectly well that that is not what they are."

He turned to look at her. "I know no such thing. In the Continuum, that's exactly what we'd call someone who invaded another Q's mind against their will."

"I'm not invading your mind. You're broadcasting to me. If you insist on using a sexual analogy, then I'll say that I'm not a voyeur, you're the one who's running around naked in front of me. I actually _couldn't_ invade your mind unless you were to form a telepathic link to me first. My empathic powers are completely passive; they're like hearing. I can listen carefully but I can't hear anything someone doesn't say."

"And how do people avoid 'saying' things to you, then?"

"Believe it or not, that is a discipline that can be learned. Captain Picard is fairly good at blocking his emotions from me, and I've met other humans who know how to shield themselves as well. If you'd like, I could teach you how to shield yourself, once this is over. It won't be perfect and it won't stand up to a truly powerful telepath, such as my mother, but I can tell how much you resent having your emotions read, and it's not pleasant for me to deal with any more than it is for you. I'd really rather _not_ hear you if I could avoid it."

He looked at her for a long moment. His face was unreadable, but she sensed disbelief warring with hope. "All right," he finally said. "When we're done with this whole moon thing, you teach me how to shield from you, and then you'll be spared having to deal with my absolute misery at having fallen to this pathetic state."

"That seems fair."

"Find out from Picard if he's made any progress with the Vulcans."

As it turned out, the Captain hadn't, and so she was left with nothing to do but sit in a room with Q, who _had_ something to do and was doing it but was growing painfully impatient with not being able to get started on the actual project. He couldn't keep his mind on his work; he got up, paced, ranted about the idiocy of Vulcans, and generally fretted. It was lunchtime, and it had already been a _long_ day. Troi had a grilled chicken sandwich, a cup of raktajino and a slice of chocolate cake-- the first to feed her, the second to keep her energy up, and the third to keep her mood balanced enough so she didn't start shouting at Q. Q demanded the same, discovered he didn't like the sandwich and couldn't stand raktajino, sucked up the cake as if his stomach was hard vacuum, tried the Earl Grey the captain was so fond of, whined that it burned his mouth, got a lukewarm one, drank it, and fifteen minutes later had to be talked through the process of using the bathroom for the first time. Apparently Q had eaten and drunk so little in the past 24 hours that that aspect of biological functioning hadn't come up yet. His disgust translated into a nausea so profound it made Troi queasy, but they both managed to get through it without either of them losing their lunch. Fortunately, while Q was obsessively washing his hands afterward for the fourth ongoing minute, Picard contacted them to send over the specs he had finally managed to cajole out of the Vulcans, and having something concrete to work with finally snapped Q out of his compulsive handwashing fit.

There wasn't much she could do except look over Q's shoulder as he worked. She knew enough about the science behind telepathy that she was able to follow what he was doing, more or less, although she never could have duplicated it. What he was constructing was not a telepathic amplifier per se; it was an artificial telepathy generator, a device that could allow any creature with any baseline level of psi to manifest active telepathic communication with anything that could receive it. She wouldn't be able to read minds any better than she already could, but she'd be able to open a link to a receptive being and communicate with them.

The first model they got out of the replicator, after Q fed in the specs, didn't work at all. It had no unpleasant side effects, it just didn't work. Q speculated that it was too Vulcan-specific still and started making modifications to the specs... and then the collision alert went off.

"Counselor, Q," LaForge's voice came over the comm, "we have incoming. The Calamarain have broken through external shielding. We're compensating now but you're going to have to watch your own shielding."

Q pushed out of the chair. "Take over."

"Why? I don't have a lot of experience with modulating shields, Q."

"Yes, but if they break through I won't be able to do anything about modulating the shields, and I'd rather not lose a minute or so to you trying to squeeze into my seat without getting electrocuted."

He had a point. She sat down and looked over the board. Though she was no expert, she had gone through the required courses at the Academy and had _some_ idea of how to modulate a shield. Still, she'd prefer guidance from an expert. "Geordi, Q's given control of the shielding over to me in case the Calamarain do break through. I might need some details from you on what to do."

"That's fine if we need it. I'll let you know."

She turned in her seat. Q was leaning against a back wall, breathing hard, though not quite hyperventilating. His fear was a living thing, closing her own throat and making her hands tremble. She took a deep breath herself, concentrating on separation disciplines. Q was only human, no greater psi ability now than any human had. At least, so she assumed. She should be able to block him out enough to do what needed to be done. "We'll be all right, Q," she said, as casually as she could. "Geordi's working to get shields back up, and we're behind shields here. You should be fine."

"So you say." He closed his eyes, head leaning back against the bulkhead. "I doubt that sitting around waiting for gruesome death or torment is ever going to be one of my favorite pastimes, though."

"It's not really anyone's favorite pastime. But once you've lived through a number of life-threatening situations, you get used to it. Ensigns on their first mission out after graduating Starfleet Academy are usually every bit as frightened as you are, but they usually have a job to occupy their attention."

"Well, if I keep working and the Calamarain do get through and attack, they're likely to fry any data storage materials I'm touching. Aren't they using radiation? Doesn't that do long-term damage to humans? It'd be just like Crusher not to tell me I'll be dead in half a year anyway from the cell damage or something."

"I think that if you were facing long-term damage, Dr. Crusher would have told you. And I do understand-- "

The shuttle rocked hard. Troi spun around in her chair to face the board. "Geordi! Give me a modulation sequence? We're under attack!"

"Try increasing the wave frequency by 5 percent!"

"Increase the wave frequency as much as you can," Q said. "The tighter the frequency the harder it will be for the Calamarain to simply slip through. If they have to batter down the shield, your pals in Engineering will have some time to get the ship's shields back up."

"Geordi, Q says I should increase to maximum because that will make it the hardest for the Calamarain to get through. Does that make sense?"

"No, it'll use up your power curve too quickly. Do what I said, but then continue to steadily increase if it looks like they're getting through."

"What are you powering this thing on, hamster wheels?" Q asked indignantly.

Troi ignored that. She watched the readouts nervously. It _looked_ as if shields were holding, but she was no expert. "Geordi? When are we expecting main shielding to come up?"

"We're working on it. Should be another few minutes."

"Great," Q said. "Peachy." He began to pace in circles in the back of the shuttle. "Can you tell how absolutely thrilled I am with this?"

"Actually, yes, I can, and I wish you would try to calm down. You're not making matters any easier for me."

"Calm _down?_ There are beings trying to kill me and the only thing standing between me and painful death is an incompetent Betazoid who apparently learned how to control shielding from Pakleds!"

"You _could_ take over."

"If this goes on much longer I just might."

The shuttle had been shaking repeatedly as the Calamarain kept attacking the shields. Abruptly the shaking stopped. "Is that good or bad?" Q asked.

"Do we have shields, Geordi?"

"_No,_" LaForge answered, not quite able to hide the irritation in his voice. "Counselor, the moment we have shields back up, I'll let you know."

She sensed an abrupt spike of terror, and swiveled around. The air vent in the back of the shuttle was glowing. "Tell him to _hurry_," Q said, voice trembling with his fear, "or there won't be much point."

Troi turned back to the board. The link to engineering had died-- the Calamarain seemed to be scrambling the comms. Frantically she tried to remodulate the shuttlecraft's shields. The Calamarain seemed to be matching anything she did. In the mirror of the dark viewscreen of the shuttle, she could see the glow ooze out of the air vent and then fly free, aiming directly at Q, who had backed up as far as he could go and was now in the corner. His fear was unbalancing her, making it hard for her to think. Desperately she tried what he'd suggested before, pushing the shielding frequency to maximum. It didn't work.

"_Do_ something!" Q screamed.

"I'm trying!"

She could see the glow envelop Q. He began slapping at it, running his hands over his body as if he were covered with insects. "No-- no, stop, get _off_ get _off_ me, _stop_\--"

Nothing was working. She spun in the chair. Q was lifting off the ground, sliding up the bulkhead as if he'd been magnetized to it, kicking frantically. Every instinct told her to try to pull him free, but since doing that had almost killed Data, she knew it wasn't possible. "Q! I tried maximum frequency and they're matching it! Is there anything else I can try?"

Q didn't seem to be able to hear her. His eyes were fixed on the glow around his body, and his cries had stopped being words and had become choked, unintelligible groans. Troi ran over as close as she dared approach and shouted. "_Q!_ The comms are down-- if you can't answer me I can't help you!"

He looked at her then. "Ngguh-- help-- puh-- please--"

His voice was strangled. They were probably impairing his breathing. It looked as if they were pushing him into the bulkhead behind him. "I will, but you need to tell me what I can do! I tried maximum frequency and they matched it. What else can I do?"

"Rap-- aagh-- nuh-- rapid-- aggh-- shifts!"

She turned back to the board, and cycled the frequency down to the lowest it could go, then the highest, then the lowest again, as fast as she could punch the buttons on the board. The glow faded, and she heard a thump and a cry as Q fell.

She ran over to him. "Q!"

"Keep... keep cycling... shields," he mumbled.

"You need help."

"I... _need_... no more attacks. Keep... cycling. I'll live. I think."

"All right." She went back to the board and kept running the shields through the rapid cycling until the comms came back up a minute later and she heard LaForge's voice.

"We've got shields back up, Counselor."

"Thank God. Let me know if anything more happens." She turned to Q, who had pulled himself to a sitting position and had drawn his knees up to his body, arms wrapped around them and head resting on his knees. He was rocking slightly, his body visibly trembling, and his emotional state was all aftershock, helplessness and exhaustion and a fear that had gone from acute to chronic. She went to him and bent down beside him. "Q? Do you need Dr. Crusher?"

"No," he whispered. "No, I... I've got to keep working or they'll do it again."

"If you need medical help you need to get it before you can get back to work."

"I didn't die the last two times this happened," Q snapped. He struggled to his feet, swayed, and almost fell. Troi offered him support, helping him over to the chair. "Ohhhh... I can't _see_ right. Everything's too bright. My head..."

"You might have a migraine from the attack. I'll get Dr. Crusher."

"_No!_ How many times do I have to tell you? I don't _need_ her. I just... I just have to get over it. You humans deal with things like this all the time."

"We deal with it by getting medical help. Why don't you want me to call Dr. Crusher?"

"Because there's no _time!_ I don't want that to happen again-- _ever_ again. I've got to get this thing built so you can talk to them and call them _off._" He looked up at her, eyes wide. "They're going to attack me again. And again, and again, and you can't protect me forever. I don't-- I can't stand it, it _hurts._ If I have to put up with working while I feel like my eyeballs might explode and drip off my face, to make sure they don't come back..."

"All right. I have some medical training, as a counselor. I'll scan you and if there's any nonprescription medication I can get for you, I will. You can start working again."

She was actually impressed, although she wasn't going to say so. She could fairly easily sense that Q was completely terrorized, as well as in pain. But the fact that he was trying to channel his fear into something constructive, that he was trying to _solve_ his problem instead of just whining about it and expecting other people to save him, was a great improvement from earlier today. Telling Q this, however, was probably a bad idea right now; his mood was extremely dark and his temper on a hairtrigger, and he'd probably take it as patronizing.

When she ran a scan on Q, the basic medical training she had as a counselor told her he was beyond her help. He needed Beverly, whether he wanted to admit it or not. She retreated to the bathroom as Q began working. "Troi to Crusher."

"Crusher here. What's wrong, Deanna?"

"I think Q needs medical attention. We were just attacked by the Calamarain. He's complaining of a migraine headache, and when I scanned him I see definite signs of distended blood vessels in the brain; I think he might be at risk for an aneurysm or a stroke."

"All right, send him up."

"Actually I was hoping you'd come _here._ Q didn't want to take time from his work to go to Sickbay, and that's an attitude I want to encourage. You'd be very surprised, Beverly; he's been hurt, he's terrified, and yet he's actually managing to channel the fear into doing something useful instead of complaining about it."

"Maybe he's already _had_ a stroke and it's caused a radical personality change."

Troi laughed. "You'd almost think. But no, I think this is genuine. He thinks that the work he's doing is the only thing that will stop him from being attacked again. Since he's essentially right, I don't want to try to talk him into going to Sickbay."

Beverly sighed. "All right. I suppose we don't want him to have a stroke."

"Hippocratic Oath, Beverly," Troi said teasingly.

"Yes, I know. Believe me. But I can't tell you how glad I'll be when he's off this ship and some _other_ doctor's problem."

Q paid no attention as Troi returned, too busy sketching things on a PADD and muttering to himself. However, when Beverly showed up, he immediately looked at Troi accusingly. "I told you I didn't have _time_ for Dr. Crusher's inept ministrations," he snarled.

"Do you have time to have a stroke? Because you could be headed that way," Beverly said acerbically.

He looked up at her, startled. "A _stroke?_ Aren't you overstating the case just a _little,_ Doctor? I wasn't in any danger of having a stroke the last time this happened."

"Actually, you were. I didn't mention it then because it was easily treatable and I didn't want you panicking and hogging attention while I was trying to treat Data."

"Oh, well, that's _brilliant,_ Crusher. Do you withhold critical medical information from _all_ your patients or am I just lucky?"

"Just lucky, I guess," she said dryly, and gave him a hypo to the neck. Q sagged slightly in his chair, the sudden relief of pain washing over his emotional output, calming him.

"Well, that _is_ better. I suppose you're not wholly incompetent."

"I think you'd be dead by now if I were." She turned to Troi. "Any progress?"

"The last one we tried didn't work."

"I've got a new one now," Q announced. "You can try it."

"That quickly?"

"I was _close_ to done with it when the Calamarain showed up and kept me from working. Here." He pulled the device out of the replicator. "Try it."

Troi placed the headband on her head-- and immediately screamed. White-hot pain stabbed through her head like shards of jagged light. She ripped the headband off and dropped it to the floor, fingers suddenly nerveless.

"Well, that looks like we're on the right track," Q said.

"On the right _track?_ Q, that _hurt._"

"Yes, I guessed that from all the screaming." He picked up the headband. "But since the last one did nothing, this may be some improvement. Let's check to be sure it's actually affecting your telepathy in some way." He put it lightly on his own head, and his face screwed up slightly as if in concentration or perhaps mild pain. "I'm _guessing_, due to my lack of desire to shriek and throw this, that the headache it's giving me is considerably less than the one it was giving you." He took the headband off and handed it toward Beverly. "Dr. Crusher. You're undoubtedly an expert on headaches, being a working mom to a wunderkind and all. Perhaps you'd like to try it. Purely in the interests of science, of course."

"Why would I need to try it?" Beverly asked warily.

"Because I'm trying to figure out whether it caused dear Deanna such excruciating pain by affecting her telepathy, or if it does that to everyone. It's hurting _my_ head, but I just apparently had a narrow escape from a migraine-induced stroke, and besides I have too little experience with pain to be able to say whether this is mild or severe. And as a former Q, for all I know I have some kind of holdover telepathic sensitivity anyway. So that doesn't prove much."

Beverly took the band and put it on. "I don't... no, there it is, I feel it. I'm getting a very mild headache, sort of like eyestrain. Is that what you felt, Deanna?"

"No, mine was more like shards of glass being stuck through my eyes."

"Very good. It's working. Just a little fine-tuning needed."

"Q, if that was _working..._"

"Oh, it's not supposed to hurt that much if it works _properly,_ Deanna. Don't be such a wuss."

The notion of Q telling _her_ not to be such a wuss was so staggering in its hypocrisy and inappropriateness that Troi could only stare at him, gaping. "I can see learning what pain feels like hasn't improved your compassion any," she finally managed to say.

"I really wouldn't be going around calling other people wusses if I were you, Q," Beverly said. "Pot? Kettle? Black?"

"Well, yes, kettle, I freely admit that I'm blacker than thou, but you're supposed to be used to it. And no, I'm not without compassion. I didn't say we would use the device in its current condition. I also, in case you didn't notice, tried it on myself _after_ you started the hysterical screaming and writhing. So if I want to call you a wuss I will. Wuss."

"I guess it takes one to know one?" Beverly asked.

"Crusher, why don't you go away and let me work? I can't concentrate with your inane blathering."

Beverly looked at Troi with a frankly disbelieving look on her face and an emotional makeup part disbelief, part being appalled. Troi shrugged, smiling sympathetically. It wasn't as if she could do anything about the basic fact that Q was an ass. Although she'd noticed him being much more dismissive of and nasty to Beverly than to Troi herself, and she couldn't figure that out. He'd put her on trial in their first encounter and then she hadn't been here for the time he tempted Will with omnipotence, and he'd ignored her last time, and this time he'd accused her of mentally raping him. From all she knew, he had had no dealings with Beverly at all the first time, ignored her the time he came for Will, and she hadn't been here at all during the Borg thing the last time. He really had had very few dealings with her at all, so why was he so much more irritated with her and so much more ready to turn the full force of his vicious tongue on her than he was with Troi? It didn't entirely make sense. True, Troi had just saved his life, but then, Beverly had done that three times today.

Beverly left. Q continued to work, and recruited her to try two more versions of the device-- one which didn't cause pain per se, but made her perceptions so sensitive that she almost collapsed from suddenly sensing everyone on the ship, and one which, apparently, inverted her powers so that she started broadcasting her emotions at Q, who found the experience disconcerting-- before they got one that appeared to work. She successfully managed to send a test message to Q. The Calamarain had tried to break the _Enterprise's_ exterior shielding in this time period, but hadn't succeeded. It was 1330 hours, three and a half hours after they'd begun work, and Troi was exhausted from the strain on her powers, despite the third cup of raktajino today. The caffeine was making her jittery, and Q's nervousness wasn't helping.

"If you think we're ready, we should do this."

"What if you can't actually use it to communicate with the Calamarain? We'd be letting them _in_\-- we won't have a chance to kick them back out again if it turns out negotiations fall apart."

"I think we have to take that risk, Q. We know we can't hold them off indefinitely."

"But they might not even listen to you. They're generally contemptuous of your form of life. Even if you _can_ talk to them--"

"Q, we've been _through_ this. If they won't listen, we'll have Geordi listening in on the comms, and he'll be able to re-tune the shields to force them back out. But we have to at least try negotiating with them-- right? Didn't you say that?"

"Yeah, but..."

"It's perfectly natural to be afraid. But if this isn't going to work we need to know that as quickly as possible."

He sagged in his chair, leaning forward on the console and propping his forehead up with his hand, elbow on the console. "Yeah. Yeah, I know. Just... do it. Go ahead. Tell LaForge."

She commed LaForge. "We're ready. I'm going to leave this comlink open, so you can reset the shields if things go wrong."

"Good thinking, Counselor. Ready when you are."

"Now."

The ship shook, once, and then the glow reappeared on the surface of the darkened viewscreen. Q pushed back from the console, backing up. With the device on her head, Troi spoke out loud to help her focus the outward communication. "Wait!"

_//::impatience::/why wait?/trick the chaos-bringer is trying to trick us/a trap!::fear/anger:://_

"No! This isn't a trick-- I want to talk to you. I want to understand why you're doing this."

_//no need to talk/no need to understand/the chaos-bringer is there! destroy it!/::disbelief::/what is this thing? why is it talking to us?/wants to understand/understand what? what can it understand?//_

"I want to understand why you want to kill the Chaos Bringer. Can you explain what he's done?"

_//::hate::it destroys/brings chaos/disrupts the PROPER ORDER OF THINGS!/not just, not fair, not right!/it must die it must die/::anger/vengeance:://_

"He can certainly be disruptive, but why does he deserve to die just for disrupting the proper order of things? Surely such intelligent beings as yourself can restore order--"

_//doesn't understand it doesn't understand/can't understand! it's a thing/why are we even wasting our time?//_

Her head pounded. The chorus of voices in her head shouted their need for vengeance, their disdain for her. "Listen to me! The being you call the Chaos-Bringer is trying to save a planet with several million people on it! Surely justice would demand that you allow him to make that attempt--"

_//millions of meat things? who CARES?/::IMPATIENCE::/Justice demands we destroy the chaos-bringer!/right there, vulnerable, trapped in meat/afraid oh yes taste its fear/it must be DESTROYED!/now now NOW//_

"Please wait! Isn't there any recompense we can arrange? Anything that can be done to repay you for what he's done?"

_//it must die/death! death will wash away the disorder/restructure/free us from the chaos it has brought!/the legacy haunts us still//_

"I understand your desire for justice and your need to balance the scales, but there are _millions of lives_ at stake. If we need to divert our resources to protecting him from you so he can work on stopping Bre'el IV's moon from falling, then we won't--"

//_you things are PROTECTING it?/::rage::/we have told you what it's done! we have told you what we require!//_

"No, you _haven't_ told me what he's done, except in the most general sense, and we can't surrender someone to be killed just because he's accused of fomenting chaos!"

_//::RAGE::/you protect it/::FURY::/you will share its fate!/kill/kill/kill them all/kill the meat creatures//_

"You don't need to kill anyone! We can come to some sort of understanding if you'd just _talk_\--"

And then the glow was on her. It felt like a thousand tiny insects made of sparks, as if fireflies actually gave off fire and were crawling all over her skin. She yelped, startled.

"Good _going_, Troi! Give me that--" She felt Q grab the band off her head. Troi stumbled, lurching. She caught herself up against the chair, realized the glow was no longer touching her or burning her, and turned.

Q had put on the headband and was completely encircled in the glow, his eyes closed, his face drawn in an expression of intense concentration. Although the glow surrounded him, it wasn't actually touching him. She could no longer "hear" the conversation without the amplifier on her head; all she could get was Q's emotional state, and the faintest resonant echo of communication, like hearing a conversation through a thick bulkhead. She got that he was communicating faster than she had been-- perhaps as a former entity of pure thought, he was adept enough at communicating without words that even with the handicap of a human brain he didn't actually need to voice his side of the conversation and could "speak" at the speed of thought.

At first she sensed nothing but desperation and resolve. She went to the shielding, hands hovering over the controls, prepared to begin the rapid shifts in shielding if they tried to attack. Q's desperation grew more acute, shading into panic, his emotional state becoming more and more frantic. The Calamarain still circled him without closing in, so she didn't try resetting the shields. She couldn't imagine how he could be negotiating with them when they wouldn't even _talk_ to her-- what would they say to him, besides chanting at him that he needed to die? But they hadn't attacked yet. He must be getting _somewhere._ At least he must be holding them off. But the panic grew, resonating in the small room until it took all her control not to scream in terror and run. Her hand on the shielding controls trembled; her heart pounded until her vision swam. Despair overwhelmed her, and though she knew it wasn't her own emotion she couldn't blot it out.

And then everything stopped.

For just a moment, she couldn't feel anything at all from Q. It was as if the panic had shut off, like he'd thrown some sort of mental switch. But it wasn't any kind of mental shield-- in the quiet that followed, she began to be able to "hear" other emotions. Exhaustion-- emotional exhaustion, not physical. Resignation. Grief and fear, muted by the exhaustion and resignation. And something else, something almost-- tender? protective? Possessive-protective. Something was his and he would defend it.

The Calamarain drained away, the glow drawing back into the walls. Q swayed on his feet. Troi went to him, catching him and helping him to a chair again. He took the headband off and dropped his hands to the console. They were shaking, and he studied them with interest, some sort of numbness and dissociation spreading through his emotional state so that the fact that his hands were trembling seemed to actually surprise him somehow. Or maybe everything surprised him. Maybe being alive surprised him.

"What happened?" Troi asked him. "What did you say?"

"Give me a minute," he said, his voice hoarse.

She went and got him a drink of water. Sipping at it seemed to calm him somewhat, as she'd hoped it would do. She got a mug of hot chocolate for herself and sipped that, running through her distinction disciplines, letting the outside emotions drain out of her. It helped that Q was almost numb. She couldn't tell if that was a good thing or not. Dissociation after a traumatic event was over was not uncommon, but she sensed no feeling of relief from Q, only weary resignation and resolve. Whatever this was, it wasn't over.

She waited for him to speak. He finished the glass of water, and pushed the empty glass around on the console idly for about half a minute before finally looking up at Troi. There was a smile on his face, an almost perfect lie. A human might never have caught him out, but there was nothing she could sense in his emotional state consistent with that beaming smile.

"Well! Despite your utter incompetence at negotiating, _I_ seem to have saved the day. The Calamarain won't be bothering you again. You're free to go about your petty little rescue mission."

"_We_ are? What about you?"

"It's not _my_ rescue mission. I'm simply graciously helping you out because otherwise Picard would have left me in the brig."

"So what did you promise them?"

"Nothing anyone's going to have any difficulty doing without, I assure you. I managed to convince them that it would, after all, be the height of unfairness to let several million innocent mortals die because of _their_ quest for justice, and that killing me would make it quite impossible for you to save those people given how stupid you all are."

His emotions had absolutely nothing to do with his insulting words. She sensed another wave of that protective/possessive tenderness from him, and grief, and acceptance/resignation, numbing the grief down. "They didn't seem to me to have any interest in preserving those lives."

"That's because they look at you as roughly equivalent to an insect. Despite my reduced state, I am at least a being they can respect. Despise, perhaps, but respect. When I realized they were attacking you, I figured that I was going to need to step in and try to close the deal before you got the whole ship destroyed with your incompetence."

"If they wouldn't listen to me because I'm an insect, then it was hardly my incompetence, Q. It was their bigotry."

He waved a hand airily. "Details."

And he had successfully sidetracked her with an insult. "What exactly _did_ you offer them, Q?"

"Nothing important."

"Yes, you said that, but _what?_"

"Troi, I assure you. The Calamarain will do nothing to harm you, or this ship, or any of its crew, or any _other_ ship in the area, or the people in the Bre'el system. It's all taken care of. Now if you don't mind I'd like to get back to engineering."

"I do mind. I want to know _what_ you offered them. I'm going to have to report the result of the negotiations to the captain, and I need to know exactly what it was."

Q made a face. "It's embarrassing. I don't want to talk about it." Grief, self-pity. Protectiveness. Resignation. Numbness.

"But I need to know. Unless you'd rather I put on the headset and tried to talk to the Calamarain again."

Alarm. "No, no, that's hardly necessary. I'll have to perform some sort of stupid, humiliating propitiating ritual in three days. For which I absolutely demand complete privacy, by the way, it's bad enough I have to humiliate myself to protect Picard's little tugboat without you people witnessing my humiliation." Fear. Self-pity. Resignation, leading to the numbness again.

He was lying. His emotional state was completely inconsistent with what he was telling her. She studied him, eyes narrowed, wondering if she should call him on it.

But if she did, he'd probably make up some other, somewhat more plausible story. There was only one person on this ship he might possibly tell the truth to, only one person he had any emotional vulnerability to. Only Captain Picard had any hope of getting the truth out of Q if Q was determined to lie. And really, the façade he was putting up was quite amazing. The waves of grief and despair that kept randomly surfacing and hitting him would have most people fighting off tears. Q had molded his face into a perfect semblance of sarcastic, flippant invulnerability. Without her empathic powers she'd never have known he was lying.

"All right," she said. "Go on to Engineering, and I'll report to the captain."

Although it was very late, she was sure Picard would still be awake. She commed him as Q left. "We're done, Captain. The negotiations are completed; apparently the Calamarain will leave us alone for at least three days."

"Very good, Counselor. What happens in three days?"

"That's a good question, sir. I'd like to talk to you about that."

"All right. I'm in my ready room. Come on up."

"On my way."

* * *

"Lying." Picard turned the word over in his mouth. Well, the notion of Q lying, about anything, hardly came as a shock, but he'd hoped the entity-- the man, now, presumably, if he wasn't somehow managing to lie about _that_\-- had been starting to improve his behavior. He supposed it was too much to hope for to get complete reform within a single day. "What part is he lying about?"

"I'm not sure. His emotional state largely consisted of despair, resignation and self-pity. Either he wasn't successfully able to make any sort of bargain with the Calamarain and they left for other reasons, or whatever he's offered them isn't simply to perform a ritual for them in three days. He also said that he convinced the Calamarain that letting millions of people die to pursue him was a bad idea-- but when I tried to tell them the same thing, they were completely dismissive of the concept. They didn't care at all. It's as if I'd said that building a house might kill thousands of blades of grass. They were, in fact, hostile to the whole notion that they _should_ care about the lives of... meat creatures, I think is the best way to describe what they called us. And I don't see how Q, who they hate enough to want to kill, could have persuaded them to change their minds when they had such incredible disdain for the idea when I presented it."

"Do you think he's hiding some sort of threat to the crew? Or to the people of Bre'el IV?"

Troi considered. "What he specifically said to me was that the Calamarain would _not_ harm... what were his exact words... this ship, or any of its crew, or any _other_ ship in the area, or the people in the Bre'el system. And I didn't get the feeling that he was being dishonest. There's a specific emotional state associated with the act of telling a lie-- it's what the old 23rd century lie detectors used to pick up on, until we realized that Vulcans could subvert them any time they wanted to and sociopaths didn't feel the emotion in question. I didn't get that sense from Q-- the 'I am lying' sense-- until he said he would have to perform a ritual for them in three days. But his whole performance, the display he showed of his emotional state, was a complete lie. Now, it's not the first time he's done that-- Q's spent the last two days or so trying to conceal his emotions with varying degrees of success-- but it was incredibly thorough and much more of a drastic change than being frightened and pretending he's just irritated. He was smiling at me, and the whole time he was alternating between complete numbness and overwhelming despair. That's too different to simply mean he was trying to hide his feelings; he was actually trying to lie about them. And if I hadn't been an empath it would have worked."

"Picard to Q."

The com badge said in Q's voice, "What is it, Jean-Luc? I'm kinda busy here."

"Really. What are you up to?"

"I'm in engineering. Data and I are trying to figure out how to build an artificial wormhole with stone knives and bearskins."

"Well, you'll have to put it on hold. I want to see you in my ready room. Now."

"What for?"

"Q, if you genuinely want to work with this crew, then when I, as the captain of this vessel, tell you to do something, you don't ask 'what for.' You do it."

Theatrical sigh. "Fine, fine. I'm coming. But if this means we don't manage to figure out how to beam the people off Bre'el III in time and as a result they all die, you can take the blame, not me."

The link went silent. "Do you want me to be here when you talk to him, Captain?" Troi asked.

"Oh, by all means, Counselor. Please do stay." His anger was cold, and hard, and perhaps out of place. Had he really begun to expect something better of Q? Really he shouldn't be angry at anyone but himself, for actually having begun to believe in the creature. And yet he couldn't be rid of it. Q had disappointed him, and he wasn't sure why that mattered when he really should have known better than to expect anything of Q in the first place, and yet it _did_ matter and he _was_ angry. Why had Q lied? What was he hiding?

* * *

When Q arrived, he looked visibly exhausted -- dark circles under his eyes, his movements slower than normal, as if he'd never slept last night -- which might in fact be the case, for all Picard knew -- but he smiled jauntily at Picard as if the prospect of a conversation with Picard perked him up. Picard didn't know whether that was true, or part of the façade -- it was impossible to tell what Q was thinking or feeling when he spent so much time using his body language to lie. "What can I do for you, _mon capitaine?"_

"You can explain what it is that you really offered the Calamarain, to begin with," Picard said. He gestured with a slight nod at Troi. "Counselor Troi tells me that you claimed you had driven them off by offering to perform a propitiating ritual."

"Yes, that's what I said. Did you call me here just to ask me questions I already answered for Troi? Do you actually want all those people on Bre'el III dead, or are you just that stupid?"

"Actually, I wanted to know why you lied to her."

Q's eyes widened, his body visibly growing tenser. Troi said, "Q, I could tell that your emotional state was completely inconsistent with what you were telling me. People who merely have to perform a ritual in three days don't suffer grief and despair over it."

"I _told_ you to stop doing that!" Q snarled at her.

"Q, telling me when someone is lying is the Counselor's _job_, and she is hardly going to refrain from it because being caught out offends your sensibilities," Picard said sharply. "It sounds to me as if perhaps you didn't actually accomplish what you set out to do." He leaned forward. "You said the Calamarain were no longer a danger. Was that a lie, too?"

"_No!_" Q slammed his hands down on Picard's desk. "I don't care _what_ Troi told you, but I will not _tolerate_ this second-guessing any longer! I did what I had to do to protect _your_ precious ship, and if you don't believe me--"

"What did you have to do, then?" Picard snapped. "If you protected the ship, what part were you lying about?"

"You don't even have any reason to think I lied to you except that that-- that _mind-rapist_ over there told you I did! And she only wishes she were a _real_ telepath, Picard, she doesn't know me, she doesn't know what I'm thinking and she _does not know_ what arrangements I made with the Calamarain! So how, exactly, could she possibly know if what I told her was true or not?" He leaned forward in Picard's face. "No one you care about is endangered any longer," he spat out. "Your ship, your crew, the people on the planet, the Kaeloids, the Ferengi, the one-celled nanoreplicators of Tamora Prime, everyone _you_ give a damn about is going to be perfectly okay, as long as you let me get back to my _job_ so we might have some hope of getting all those people off Bre'el III before _their_ moons crash. I don't see why anything else matters to you!"

"What. Did. You. Promise. The Calamarain?" Picard enunciated each word, trying to control his own anger. He hadn't expected this childish outburst; usually, when he called Q on a lie or an evasion, Q admitted it. This attempt to blame Troi for catching him out was extraordinarily irritating.

"None of your _business!_ I told you, nothing you care about will be harmed! What more do you need to know?"

"He's sincere," Troi reported, "but I am also sensing great bitterness and self-pity from him, as well as anger."

And abruptly it clicked; the repetition of the concept that nothing he cared about would be harmed, and the understanding that Q was emotionally an adolescent, and Troi's report of the emotions she was sensing, all came together to one conclusion. Picard let out his breath in a controlled, aggravated sigh. "Oh, I see. You've taken it on yourself to _martyr_ yourself again, haven't you? Our earlier discussion meant nothing to you; once again you assumed you had to solve everything yourself, once again you could come up with no better idea than throwing your life away. Only this time you knew I wouldn't stand for it, so you _lied_ about it. You need to stop indulging this childish martyrdom complex of yours, Q!"

Q's face went white. "You--" He spluttered, obviously unable to come up with something to say-- or perhaps too upset to be able to speak. "You--"

"No, Q, you've had your say! I do not want any more excuses, any more prevarications. You will--"

"Forget it," Q interrupted. "Just forget it. I'm not listening to you. I don't care anymore. _Let_ your ship be destroyed. Let them all die on that planet. I'm not helping you, I'm not listening to you, you can just throw me in the brig and I'll wait for us all to be annihilated! Because that's what you obviously want!" He had started at a normal volume for an interruption, but by the time he was done, he was shouting. He spun on his heel and headed for the door.

"Q!" Troi said, starting toward him.

"You know what, Counselor? I'm so glad you're going to die with me. You can't imagine how happy it makes me to know that when the Calamarain blow this ship to bits, you're going with me. Because you are a _despicable, animal, filthy_ waste of DNA and if you dare speak to me again, I can't promise I won't _hit_ you."

Troi stepped back as if Q had brandished a weapon at her, eyes going wide and skin paling. Picard almost summoned Security to take Q back to the brig, then. The sheer vitriol of the attack on Troi for doing her job enraged him. But sending Q to the brig wouldn't stop the complete collapse of this situation, and the truth was there were people on Bre'el III who might need Q's expertise to survive. He needed to reassert some control. "Q!" he shouted, intending to demand an apology.

"What?" Q snarled, without turning around.

"Look at me!" Picard ordered.

"Or what, you'll throw me in the brig? I told you already I'm not listening to you! Go ahead, throw me in the brig, throw me out an _airlock_ for all I care, I'm not lifting a _finger_ for you people anymore! I just don't care!"

There was something that sounded odd in Q's voice, a strain Picard hadn't expected. He took a deep breath. "Counselor, you're dismissed." He wasn't going to get anywhere with Q with Q's fury at Troi for exposing him clouding the issue.

"Yes, sir." Troi hesitated only a moment, then turned and left the room. Q was still standing there, near the door but not close enough to trigger it himself, still facing away from Picard. Picard walked over to him.

"Q. _Look_ at me."

"No." This close, he could see that Q was shaking.

Rather than make another demand Q would refuse, he simply walked around Q and looked up at the man's face. To his shock, he could see that Q's face was streaked with tears, his lips trembling, his shoulders shaking. He glared furiously at Picard, but the effect was rather ruined by the tears spilling out of those glaring eyes. Picard had thought, from the odd note in Q's voice, that there might be something beyond simple fury, but he hadn't expected full-blown tears. Not from Q. The thought occurred to him for a fraction of a second that this might be a manipulation, but he immediately dismissed it. He remembered being a young boy, a teen barely out of childhood, driven to tears by his older brother's taunts, hating his brother and hating himself for being so weak as to show tears. Q would never cry as a manipulation tactic; it was far too much a display of weakness, too far from the image Q tried to present of himself.

The anger left Picard then in a sigh. Without quite wanting to, he felt a great deal of sympathy for Q. From his own experience in trying to maintain a controlled image, he knew Q would not cry unless he was so overwhelmed that he couldn't help himself, and that it had to be hurt, not mere anger, triggering this. Q had no problems displaying anger -- Picard was certain it would take more than simple rage to break him down like this.

"Sit down, Q," he said, gently this time.

"Why?" Q demanded. His voice was belligerent, but the crack in it from repressed sobs had gotten much more noticeable.

"Because we need to talk." He took a deep breath. "I'm sorry."

"You're sorry? You're _sorry?"_ Q spun on his heel again, this time heading back into the room since Picard was between him and the door. "I offered to _die_ for you people! I d-didn't _want_ it, I tried everything else, I _tried_, but it was the only thing-- the only thing--"

And then he collapsed to the floor, kneeling, arms clutched tightly around himself, rocking. Small animalistic noises escaped him, only the kind of nasalized sounds that could be made when no air was escaping or entering one's lungs. Picard walked over to him and half-knelt by him, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Breathe," he suggested. "Just take deep breaths."

"I c-_can't!_" Q looked up at Picard, eyes wild. "What's hap- happen-ning to. Me?"

"You're crying," Picard said, trying not to sound patronizing. _He doesn't know anything about being human_, he reminded himself again.

But his assumption that Q didn't know the basics turned out to be wrong. "I kn-_know_ that!" Q screamed. "Why - why c-can't. I brea- _breathe?_" He turned his head back to face the floor, his fists on the floor, clenching tightly.

"It's normal," Picard said. "Your body is trying to control your lungs without your volition involved, and you're fighting it. You won't let yourself sob if you can avoid it, but you can't make your lungs breathe normally, either. You need to let go." He shook his head slightly. "I understand why you're fighting it, but I don't think you can, yet. Not successfully. Don't fight."

"An-and _what?_ Bawl hys-teric-terically on your floor. Like a ch-_child?_ I. Don't _th-think_ so!"

"Q, you've been human for only slightly over 24 hours, you're probably overtired and underfed and obviously stressed to your limit, and you _don't_ know how to control this body as well as you might like yet. It's all right. No one else can see you, and I will not think less of you."

"Is that p-possible? _Cou-_could you think less. Of me? Does the s-scale go below ze-zero?"

Picard winced slightly. "I suppose I deserved that," he said quietly. "But things have changed since this morning. I _am_ sorry for the conclusions I jumped to. And no, I do not think that little of you. Perhaps that was why I was so angry when Counselor Troi told me you'd lied. For some reason I thought better of you."

"I. D-didn't _lie_. Ab-about. Any-thing im-_por_tant, Pi-card." Q turned his tear-streaked face to look at Picard. "I said. I'd k-keep every-thing. You care-cared about. Safe. And I di-did. Didn't lie ab-out that."

"You're assuming that I have no concern whatsoever for _your_ life. And that is not true."

"Yes, it _is!_" Q wrenched his head away and shook it violently. "I'm not- not one of y-you. It's ob-vious. Your p-precious eth- ethics won't let you sac-rifice me, but. It's not like you. _C-care._ I don't be-long."

His sobbing was easing up slightly, giving him just a little bit more freedom to talk. Picard stood up and went to the replicator. "Iced chamomile tea, two sugars." Though he couldn't know for sure -- certainly the things Q'd devoured in the conference room weren't exactly dessert food -- Picard thought Q would appreciate sweetened iced tea rather more than unsweetened, though he himself found the concept of sweetened tea to be something of an abomination. He brought the tea over to Q. "Here. Drink this slowly."

"What is th-this ob-session pe-people have for making me d-rink things?"

"A drink is calming, and it will help you regulate your breathing."

For a moment Q looked as if he would refuse. But he moved to a chair and sat down rather than continuing to kneel on the floor, and he took the glass and drank from it in huge gulps, which, predictably, led him to start hiccupping. Controlling the urge to sigh, Picard went to the replicator and ordered up a hiccup regulator, which he handed to Q. "Put this on your chest. It'll stop the hiccups."

Q gave him a truly poisonous look, but obeyed. After a moment or two, the hiccups stopped. Since the hiccups had already disrupted the sobs, Q's breathing was now ragged but more or less under control. "What new hideous human frailty is this?"

"It's called hiccups," Picard said dryly, sitting down at his desk.

"Oh. Yeah. I always thought those looked incredibly stupid. I didn't realize how annoying they were for the person suffering from them, though." He took a sip from the drink. "You said you wanted to apologize. Now that I can breathe properly, you can get on with it any time you like, you know."

"I believe I already did. I jumped to conclusions about your motives, because hearing that you were not being truthful with Counselor Troi predisposed me to think the worst of you. And I apologize for that." Picard steepled his hands on his desk. "But you had better explain to me what is _actually_ going on, and what you really negotiated with the Calamarain. The truth, this time."

"How will you know I'm telling the truth without your mind-rapist to tell you?"

"I like to think that if I ask you to be honest with me, you'll try."

"Whereas I wouldn't try if you didn't ask."

"It does seem that you operate on the principle that anything not explicitly forbidden is permissible."

A wry smile tugged at Q's mouth for a moment. "I suppose that's not entirely inaccurate." He put the drink down on the desk and began to pace Picard's office. "I did warn you, you know. I said it was possible we wouldn't have anything they wanted. Maybe you could have worked your magic with them with one of those wonderful speeches of yours, if you could have talked to them, which you couldn't. But Troi didn't get anywhere with them. In fact she told them you were protecting me, and right after that they attacked her, which doesn't say much for her negotiating skills. I thought... well, I thought I couldn't do _worse_ than that."

"How were you able to talk to them? You're not telepathic, I presume."

"No, but I know how to do it. The device I built creates artificial telepathy. If you had experience with telepathic transmissions you might have been able to talk to them, but there wasn't time for you to learn." Now that he'd gotten himself back under control, Q showed no sign in his voice or his body language that he'd just been crying hysterically -- only the marks of tears still streaking his face and his reddened eyes gave him away. "The trouble wasn't talking to them. The trouble was what to say. I tried to find out what they wanted, aside from my death, and as I suspected, there wasn't much of anything really. I tried persuading them that it would be hardly just to let millions of mortals die because of their desire for justice, but they said that would be on my head for not surrendering myself. I tried to point out that being sentenced to mortality by my own people meant I'd already been punished for the crimes I committed, against them or anyone else, and they said that they wouldn't acknowledge any punishment short of my death to be sufficient. I..." A slight tremor came back into his voice, and he looked away. "I humiliated myself totally, actually. Guinan would've been delighted."

"Guinan does not seem to me to be the sort of person who takes pleasure in the humiliation of others."

"And you've known her how long? Thirty years, tops? You don't know her like I do. She told me earlier today, right before the Calamarain first attacked... that I'd better get used to begging. So I tried it, I mean, I didn't have much to lose, aside from my dignity and after everything that's happened I think that's gone." He shook his head. "That didn't work either."

"And yet you're here alive, and they've gone. What _did_ you promise them?"

Q took a deep breath. "I... You know I mentioned they have this overblown sense of justice. Well, one thing they like to have, they like to have criminals accept and acknowledge the, uh... righteousness of the punishment. Declare mea culpas and publicly accept their punishment, that kind of thing. The Calamarain can force that on each other -- one of the reasons I picked them out to, uh, torment in the first place, I find that behavior quite disgusting. They essentially, um... how do I put this... they can override what an individual Calamarain in the swarm thinks by imposing groupthink on them. It's an ability the Q have, collectively, and _we_ don't use it on each other... which, I suppose, is why I'm here as myself and not still part of the Continuum as a good, law-abiding little zombie Q, but whatever. The point is, they can't _make_ me accept my punishment. They can kill me, but they can't get me to acknowledge to them that I deserve it... because I don't, but that's beside the point, I could lie about it if I felt like it. I could say what they want me to say, I just won't. And they can't make me. Unless they give me something to make it worth my while. So."

"You offered... to publicly acknowledge your crimes?"

"I offered to publicly attest and affirm that I admit to my crimes _and_ acknowledge that I deserve to be executed for them. Which I don't. But I can lie about it. They can��"if they're in physical contact with me, with any being made of flesh, they can read my surface thoughts. It's how they identified me when I was asleep, with the probe -- if I'd been awake maybe I could have misdirected them, I don't know. But in any case, I can communicate with them even without the device, at a surface level, if they're touching me, which they have to be to kill me. And I agreed that I'd make that acknowledgement for them, _if_ they gave me three days to try to help you people with the moon thing."

"I thought you said it would take five days."

"They wouldn't go for five days. They were only willing to give me three. I told them their choices were, I voluntarily surrender myself in three days and give them their acknowledgement, or we put the shields back up and I talk you into fighting them, and with my help, you actually might be able to destroy them, and even if they end up destroying us all they wouldn't get my acceptance under any circumstances. They didn't really believe me that you'd be able to successfully fight them off -- to be honest, I'm not sure _I_ believe me, because I don't think you'd be ruthless enough until it was too late��"but they want the acknowledgement almost as badly as they want me dead. So. In three days I go out to them and they��" and three days should be long enough that you won't need my advice anymore." He plopped himself back down on the desk. "Is that what you wanted to know? Can I go now? My time, you understand, has gotten very short."

"I would rather that you didn't, just yet." Picard pushed back very slightly in his chair, letting his hands rest in his lap, watching Q. "I understand why you made the bargain that you did with the Calamarain, now. But I don't understand why you lied to Counselor Troi about it. Was it too much a violation of your image? Too much of a blow to your reputation as the 'bad boy' of the galaxy to admit that you had agreed to sacrifice yourself to buy us time? You'd already done it once before; I'd think the damage to your reputation was done."

Q shook his head. "What does my reputation have anything to do with anything? I told you already, I'm human now. I _want_ to be part of you. But you don't want any part of me. Why should I have told Troi anything, and put up with her insulting psychobabble, and you... you'd have done exactly what you just _did._ It's bad enough I'm dying for _you_, not to mention losers who can't even move their own moon; I was supposed to be eager to hear you belittling me for it, claiming I'm doing it for attention? If Troi hadn't been prying where she wasn't wanted, you'd never have known until it was done and then I'd never have had to hear your sanctimonious prattle and your insults."

"And we would never have been able to help you, and your death would be inevitable."

"My death _is_ inevitable. Aside from it being a condition of mortality anyway, what part of I have three days to live did you not understand?"

"The part where the trickster, the liar, the man who thrives on chaos and misdirection, feels honor-bound to carry out a surrender to an execution he doesn't believe he deserves, if there is any other way whatsoever." Picard stood. "Q, I confess this is _never_ a position I expected to find myself in, but... you do _not_ have to follow through on a bargain you were coerced into making. If I'm understanding you correctly, what you said was the only thing you could say to keep from being killed right then and there."

"Am I getting this properly? You're telling _me_ to go back on the word I gave? Hello, what species are you really and what did you do with the real captain?"

Picard smiled slightly. "It does seem ridiculous. But that is what I'm saying. Talk to us. Let us help you. Let us find another way. If it comes to it... given a choice between protecting a being who has twice tried to sacrifice himself to save others, and honoring the judicial system of beings that consider us less than insects and don't think twice about the fact that their 'justice' may kill millions of innocent sentients... we _would_ fight to protect you. You have your own issues with your superiority complex and your overweening arrogance, but you've shown a willingness to change and grow. They haven't."

"I love how 'willingness to change and grow' is synonymous in your mind with 'willing to act like a human'. And you call _me_ arrogant."

"All right, then, you've shown a willingness to try to learn what it means to be human. Perhaps in the past you might have been as cavalier about the death of millions as the Calamarain are, but here and now, you care enough to give up your life to save them. Perhaps it is arrogant or ethnocentric of me, but I do not believe morality is situational and changes from species to species. Honoring the rights of sentient beings to live and be free is a universal moral constant. Right now, you believe in that and they do not. I cannot judge what you actually _did_ to them, since I have only your word for what it was, but from what I see of your and their behavior, I must take your side in this conflict."

"Well. That certainly gives me a warm fuzzy feeling, Picard, I'm thrilled that you'd stand up for me. Really." The sardonic tone made it impossible to tell if Q was being wholly flippant or if he was using the sarcasm to cover for genuine feelings. Earlier today Picard would have assumed the former, but knowing what he knew now about Q's defensive behaviors, he was inclined to think the latter. "But it's not relevant. Because you _can't_ save me. Unless you're willing to turn on the Calamarain while they're off-guard and ruthlessly annihilate them, and I _know_ you won't do that. Not for me. And even if you did, you'd despise me for the rest of your life for making you do it. The dying option is more attractive, actually."

"There you go again. You assume you know all the parameters of the situation and that there is no way we could possibly think of a solution when you can't. You _know_ you're no longer omniscient, you _know_ we understand our technology and capabilities far better than you do. Why do you assume we cannot possibly think of an answer simply because you can't?"

"Because I know the Calamarain. They're _smart_, Picard. There are thousands of separate minds in that cloud, and they can yoke together and think in unison, processing problems and solutions faster than even Data can. You can't outthink them -- well, not unless you play on their particular cultural quirks like I did, but even that, I've taken that one as far as it goes. If you attack them and you don't kill them in the first round, they _will_ destroy you. They're as adaptable as the Borg and they think your lives are totally unimportant. They can move faster than your highest warp, they can disperse around your weapons blasts, and we've seen they can rip your shields apart. Sooner or later they'd think of popping the magnetic shield that holds your anti-matter in, and kaboom. I've _thought_ about this, believe me. And now that I've made a bargain, the Calamarain will hold me to it, and they'll destroy you for protecting me if I don't go. The only way I might live is if you kill all the Calamarain before they realize you're attacking -- they think so little of your form of life, it won't occur to them that you might be dangerous until it's too late -- and first of all, I know you're not going to do that, and secondly, the math doesn't work. There's one of me and several thousand Calamarain."

Picard frowned. "Your sudden interest in mathematics as a way of determining who should live and die doesn't fit well with a being who once declared that our species was 'always suffering and dying.' Or who allowed 18 people to be murdered to prove a point."

"You don't get it." Q got off the desk and went to look at the fish tank. "As a Q, I was immortal, omnipotent. My potential impact on the universe was _vastly_ greater than any human's. Of course I didn't think your lives were particularly important. I was on a different scale; my existence was far, far more important than yours, just as yours is more important than the existence of any number of microbes, or an entire species of poisonous insects, or a herd of marauding animals. I was exactly as concerned for your well-being in comparison to my own as you are for this fish -- I mean, if the ship was crashing would you evacuate the fish? If you had to self-destruct the ship and everyone was off except for the fish, would you hesitate? If you found out that Riker was allergic to the fish and it was making his hideous beard fall out, would you hesitate to get rid of it?"

"The fish is not a sentient being, and I would not cruelly torment the fish for fun. Or attempt to swim with the fish and its school, and then call in a fishing boat to harpoon them out of anger that they rejected me."

"According to the Q, you may or may not be what we consider a sentient being. The jury was still out on that one when they kicked me out. Your other point..." He smiled that weak, embarrassed smile Picard had seen twice already today. "Okay. You have me there. But that's not the point. The point I'm trying to make is... I'm human now. My life is worth exactly what any other _one_ human life is worth... no more, no less. The only reason I want to think differently is, well, it's _my_ life. And, you know, objectively, that doesn't mean very much." He turned back toward Picard, walked over to the chair and sat down. "Every sentient being on your level -- my level now, too, I suppose -- is just as valuable. So millions of sentient anthropoids on Bre'el IV are worth more than one sentient anthropoid, even if that one used to be a Q. A thousand sentient anthropoids -- plus one android -- are still worth more than me. If I am to avoid hypocrisy, I suppose I have to admit that several thousand Calamarain are worth more than me, as horrifically wrong as that seems. One of me doesn't balance against any of those. So if one of the parties involved has to die... it only makes sense that it would be me."

Picard blinked. Somehow Q had started from a completely immoral premise -- that a being of great power was worth more than another sentient being with less puissance -- and come around to a conclusion that was entirely consistent with Picard's understanding of ethics. The needs of the many did outweigh the needs of the one, and if Q was right that there were no other choices whatsoever, then he was right that his death would cause the least harm of any of the other options. But the thought of allowing a person on his ship, a civilian at that, to give himself up to be killed... it was sickening, and he would not accept that there was no other choice. Not yet.

"I can't argue with your conclusions, Q. But I do take exception to your premise. You remain convinced that the only solutions are to kill the Calamarain or die yourself. There may _be_ other options. We haven't explored all the possibilities yet -- and your insistence that you know all the options is only hurting you. I know it must hurt your pride to think that we could imagine something you can't, but is that pride worth dying for?"

Q looked at Picard for several long moments. Finally he said, "Did you ever read any 20th century science fiction?"

"I can't say I have read any great amount, no. I've read one or two of Asimov's short stories, since Data's creator seems to have been inspired by Asimov's robots, but overall their misconceptions about what the future would hold are... honestly, rather depressing. I prefer mysteries from the time period; at least they aren't anachronistic."

"Well, you've missed a few good reads. 20th century science fiction wasn't about the future, it was about their worldview, and you could honestly do with a better understanding of historical human worldviews. There's a particular story I'm thinking of that you really should have read."

"Does this non sequitur have a point, Q?"

"The story was called 'The Cold Equations', and it imagined that when you people developed space travel, the fuel you'd use would be so horrifically expensive and resource-intensive to produce, that spaceflight had to be calculated down to the last gram. During deceleration, the inertial drag of coming out of faster-than-light and slowing down to land would multiply any extra kilogram by so much drag, it could burn through the ship's fuel and cause it to crash."

"That isn't realistic. You would have to build a ship with redundant tolerances to compensate for fluctuations. And what if a last minute course change was required? If the ship was so short on fuel, it would have no way to evade an ion storm."

"They didn't know about ion storms. I don't think they'd even put up a satellite yet at the time this story was written. Certainly they hadn't gone to the moon. The point is, because fuel was very expensive, only the exact amount a ship would require would be supplied. So a stowaway was a deadly danger, and pilots would kill a stowaway without hesitation, given that most of them would be hijackers planning to murder the pilot and toss him out the airlock."

"How could the ship take off with a stowaway aboard, if fuel was so short? Wouldn't acceleration automatically use up too much fuel and make it obvious that the full trip would be impossible?"

"I forget. Maybe they left from a space station or something. I don't have an eidetic memory anymore, Picard. That's not the point anyway. In the story, the main character, a pilot, discovers he has a stowaway. And since he's transporting medicine to a colony world suffering from a plague, if his ship crashes it's not just him who'll die. So he has to space the stowaway. The only problem is, it turns out to be a teenage girl who thought it would be a great adventure to stow away aboard the ship, because her brother lived on the colony world and she figured she'd hitch a ride and no harm would be done."

"And does the pilot kill her?"

"Well, he tries to find another solution. He doesn't want to kill an innocent, naïve girl any more than you would. But the thing is, there _is_ no other solution. The cold equations that rule physics don't care that the girl is innocent, that she meant no harm, that she wasn't aware of the problem with the fuel. They say that if her mass is aboard the spaceship when it decelerates, there won't be enough fuel to land. The ship will crash, she'll die, the pilot will die, her brother and everyone on the colony world waiting for the medicine will die. There's no way out. No one will magically swoop to the rescue, no engineer will rejigger the photonic flux matrix or whatever to provide more power, there isn't even a spacesuit aboard the ship that would fit the girl. She has to leave the ship, and the only place there is to go is naked space. She _has_ to die. And at the end of the story, she accepts it, and she agrees to let the pilot space her, because it's the only way. Because it doesn't matter whether or not she deserves to die. She has to, for everyone else in the story to live."

"And you see yourself as that character? The young girl?"

"Well, obviously I am no innocent, Picard... but yes, I was naïve. I chose to become human for a number of reasons and none of them have panned out, but most of all, _you can't protect me._ It will destroy you to try. I was thinking I'd need protection, but not from something as powerful as the Calamarain -- most species that don't like me very much are on your level. I had no contingency plan for what if one of my more powerful _objets d'amusement_ showed up gunning for revenge. And because of that..." He swallowed. "Because of that I'm dead. Because the universe doesn't care if you're naïve, if you're panicked and desperate and not thinking very clearly, if you don't deserve to die this way. All it cares about are the cold equations, and without the powers of the Q, I'm as subject to them as you are. The Calamarain are going to kill me, because if they don't, then they'll kill me _and_ this ship and probably end up getting the planet destroyed by the moon, or else you'll kill them, and you'd probably take casualties doing that, and whatever way it goes a lot more people would end up dead than if it's just me."

He looked away. "I... actually... it means something to me that you wanted to save me, Jean-Luc. More than you probably realize. But you _can't_. I wish you could, but my wishes don't shape reality any more. I want... I want to live. I mean, not that this being human thing is all that entertaining, you understand, but I... I never thought I'd die. I never had to accept my mortality because I wasn't mortal. And now I am, and now I have to die, and I... I _don't_ want this, but it has to be this way. It doesn't matter what I want, what you want, what your fish wants. Unless one of my folks back home decides to swoop in and save us all, and frankly, I estimate the odds of that happening to be about, oh, zero. If anyone cared that much, they'd have spoken up at my trial and maybe I wouldn't be here."

"Let me ask you something, Q. You speak of the cold equations, but you were born with the ability to manipulate reality to your will. Have you ever before had to fight them? Have you ever before had to try to beat nigh-impossible odds? Because we have, my crew and I. I understand that you feel certain that there is no alternative but your death, and I can accept your reasoning. But you do _not_ know everything any longer, you certainly don't know our capabilities as well as we do, and I don't think you have much experience in fighting for what you want."

Q shook his head slowly. "Not... like this, no. I've _argued_ with the Continuum, but..." He trailed off, staring into nothing. Before Picard could begin to speak again, though, he said, "It's not as if I want to die. If there _was_ a way you could save me, and it didn't involve killing anyone else, of course I'd want you to do it. I just don't think there is such a thing, and I don't think it does me any good to spend my last days living in false hope. I'd rather -- I'd rather just try to accept it, because... it's not something I ever thought I'd have to accept, and... it's _hard_. I'm still having a hard time believing I'm really stuck as a human, let alone that I'm going to die."

"I understand. It is painful, to live in hope. But whether you believe we can succeed or not, I would ask you to cooperate with us. Tell us everything you know of the Calamarain, of their weaknesses, their abilities, the way they think. I cannot promise that we can save your life... and you are right, I fear, that if we can't find a way out of this situation your death is unfortunately the lesser of several possible evils." He stood up and put a hand on Q's shoulder. "I _am_ impressed that you would volunteer to sacrifice yourself to save us, you know. Even the first time, when I was sure you hadn't thought things through, I was angry with you for going off on your own, but it did impress me. And I truly am sorry for misjudging you -- I can see you've given this matter a great deal of thought, this time."

Q smiled sardonically. "Of course, Jean-Luc, I _live_ to impress _you_."

Picard ignored that. "If we cannot find a way to save you... I will respect your agreement with the Calamarain, and we will allow you to surrender yourself. But I want you to promise me that you'll cooperate with us in trying to find an alternative." He dropped his hand, and matched Q's sardonic smile. "If nothing else, it would be a terrible waste to let you die the moment you show any sign of learning to be a decent sentient being."

"Ah, the stalwart Captain Picard. Boldly going where no one has gone before, seeking out new life in order to teach it to conform to human morality. Did you ever consider writing improving texts for children?"

"Whether it's human morality or Q morality, the fact is you are thinking about the impact your actions have on others, and trying to avoid causing unnecessary suffering or death. That's a far cry from how you behaved the last few times you were here. Who knows, if you live long enough as a human you might even become a person worth knowing."

"You only consider people you like worth knowing? That's short-sighted of you, Jean-Luc. Anyone you can learn from is worth knowing, and you can't pretend you've never learned anything from knowing me."

"No, I suppose I can't." He sat back down. "You should take a nap, Q. You look as if you haven't slept since you napped in the brig yesterday."

Q shrugged. "Yeah, I couldn't figure out how anyone sleeps in that torture chamber you call a sickbay."

"Well, you've been assigned a private room now."

"What's the old expression? 'I'll sleep when I'm dead?' I've got three days, I don't plan to spend any part of them unconscious."

"Q, after three days without sleep you'd probably wish to be dead. Humans _need_ sleep. Your ability to fully use your intellect and control your own emotions is dependent on sleeping. I would imagine both are abilities you find useful."

Q sighed. "Moons are going to start crashing into Bre'el III within a day. I don't have time to sleep right now. Maybe once we figure out how to evacuate all those idiots. But I have to get back to work."

"All right. But get some sleep as soon as you can. Don't try to stay up for three days."

"Fine, fine."


	3. Working In Groups

When Wesley Crusher came on duty shortly before 1600 hours, Commander LaForge greeted him with "Wesley. Just the fellow I wanted to see!"

"What's going on, Commander?" Wesley asked. "I heard we were going to be trying to push the Bre'el moon again... is that what you need me for?"

"No, this time Gomez, Barclay and Taurik will be handling that. We'll be hitting perigee in about ten minutes, and this time I think it's going to work. I've got another project for you."

"Sure. Did we manage to do anything about the Calamarain, or did we do something to let us shield from them while we're pushing?"

"Q cut a deal with the Calamarain, apparently. Which is kind of related to what I need you for." He guided Wesley over to a console where Data was very rapidly punching in parameters to display various equations on the screen, and then altering them. "We've got two new challenges to deal with, because the Bre'el III satellites are unstable too. Their orbits are starting to deteriorate, and there's half a million people on Bre'el III. So our two main objectives, right now, are to figure out how to rapidly move all the people to the other side of the Bre'el sun, and housing them once they get there. Q suggested that we reprogram the replicators to produce antimatter--"

"Wait, _what?_ Replicators can't make antimatter!"

"I know. It's a serious technical challenge. But from the perspective of pure physics, think about it... he's right, it should be _possible._ We just need to figure out how to do it."

"Why do we need to make more antimatter?"

"To power self-replicating construction replicators that can turn the rings of Bre'el VII into habitable space stations, mostly, although the extra power would come in handy for some other purposes, as well."

"So is that what you want me working on?"

"No, that's what I need Data working on, but he was working with Q on developing an artificial wormhole that could transit the solar system so we could beam people directly to the space station on Bre'el VII, and if we can build more stations there that would be the most effective way to get all the people safely evacuated. With three satellites, we can't try this trick with pushing the Bre'el III moons, even if we had enough warp-capable ships, so getting the people out of there is really the only option."

"You think we can develop an artificial wormhole? Commander... that's pretty out there. I'm not even sure how we'd go about _trying_ to do that."

"That's what I need you for, Wesley. You've got a stronger background in theoretical physics and, well, weird science, than anyone here, even Data, at least when it comes to the really esoteric stuff. You're the only one who actually understood the modifications the Traveler was making to the warp engines to allow us to get back home from the Outer Rim, after all."

Data looked up. "Ah, Wesley. Has Geordi explained to you what we are doing?"

"Mostly. You need me to work with you on developing the artificial wormhole?" He looked over the math Data was working with, and his eyes went wide. "_Cool._ I haven't seen math like that since the Traveler asked me to help him out! This'll be great!"

"Actually, I believe that Geordi would prefer that I assist him in the development of antimatter replication."

"Antimatter replication's a pure engineering problem," LaForge said. "We already have the theoretical groundwork we need to pull it off, it's just a matter of implementing it. But you're my theory guy, Wes. For the artificial wormhole we need to get our heads around the theoretical framework before we can even begin to come up with a strategy, like you said."

"You want me working on this _alone?_" The implied trust and confidence in Wesley's intellect both thrilled and terrified Wesley, since he was pretty sure that he could not, in fact, figure out a theoretical framework for the development of an artificial wormhole, at least not on short notice.

"Uh, no. Not exactly. See..."

"Captain Picard summoned Q to talk to him, approximately twenty-five minutes ago. He is expected to return to the project, however."

Wesley looked back and forth between LaForge and Data. He could _not_ be understanding this correctly. "You want me to work alone... with _Q?_"

"Well, you did work with the Traveler," LaForge said, sounding uncomfortable. Now Wesley could guess why LaForge had been beating around the bush so much.

"Commander, he _stabbed_ me with a _bayonet_!"

"Technically," Data said, "Q did not personally stab you. You were stabbed by one of his creations."

"If I programmed the holodeck to kill someone, that doesn't mean it wasn't me that killed them!"

"I know, Wes. I know. But here's the thing. The guy's a jerk, but he actually does know his stuff, and he's willing to help. We've got five hundred thousand people in danger on Bre'el III, and there's no way we could evacuate them all in time even if we were free to ferry them back and forth... and we're not, because we have to spend the next ten hours pushing Bre'el IV's moon back into place. You have experience working with aliens who understand physics at a much more advanced level than the Federation--"

"Well, yeah, but that was the _Traveler_, not _Q._ The Traveler's a really nice guy."

"But he's not here to help us with this. Q is." LaForge sighed. "Look, Wes, I really didn't want to do this to you. Q's hard enough for full-grown adults to deal with. But you and Data are the smartest guys in the engineering department, and Data's got years more experience with straight engineering problems than you do, but you've got more experience with cutting-edge theoretical physics than any of us. And you're good at it. I've got too many critical jobs here and I need to assign the best person for the job, even if that means making you have to deal with Q." He put his hand on Wesley's shoulder. "I'll make it up to you when we're done. Pizza in Ten-Forward or the holodeck adventure of your choice, you decide."

Wesley sighed. He was an acting ensign, there were lives at stake, and LaForge really needed him to do this. And maybe he'd be lucky and Q wouldn't come back from his meeting with the captain. Except, of course, that would leave Wesley with the burden of trying to come up with an entire new theory of physics on short notice, by himself.

Data caught him up on what he and Q had already done, and Wesley spent the next twenty minutes or so trying to wrap his head around it. The math they'd been working on seemed to be the skeleton of a structure that could describe the nature of space. Some of it, Wesley recognized easily; other parts he got quickly when Data explained them; still other parts of it he _thought_ he understood, but he'd want to have a discussion with someone who understood it better than Data did, and if that person had to be Q... well, people in Starfleet had to deal with obnoxious aliens all the time. There was some stuff that Data said Q hadn't had a chance to explain before he left, and neither Wesley nor Data could figure out what it was supposed to be. After Data went over to work with LaForge on the antimatter replication problem, Wesley hammered on the math for a while, trying to map it to his understanding of physics and phenomena he'd observed or read about.

And then Q showed up.

Wesley was actually deep enough in his study of the work Data and Q had already done that he didn't realize Q had shown up until a strident voice boomed out, "You want me to work with a _sixteen-year-old boy_??"

Wesley turned around. "I'm _seventeen_," he snapped.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot that when you have a microscopically short life span, a single year could possibly make any kind of a difference," Q retorted. "From the perspective of several _billion_ years, a single year doesn't really make all that much difference."

"Wesley is our expert on advanced physics," LaForge said.

Q looked at him with an expression of exaggerated horror. "I knew you were _primitive,_ LaForge, but I had no idea _how_ primitive," he said. "Let me guess, the head of the xenobiology department is a three year old?"

"I've worked with advanced alien physics before," Wesley said hotly. "I worked with the Traveler to get us back from the Outer Rim of the universe!"

Q rolled his eyes. "Oh, a _Traveler_. Am I supposed to be impressed? They're only a tiny shade less unsophisticated than _you_ are."

LaForge took a deep breath. "Q. I don't need you to like this arrangement. But you don't know enough about our technology to develop an artificial wormhole by yourself, and I need Data for the work on antimatter replication. Wesley may be young, but when it comes to advanced theoretical physics, there isn't anyone on the ship who's as good at grasping new concepts, and no one but Data has as much background in it. Wesley has a better chance of being able to figure out what the heck you're talking about and translate it into engineering specs than anyone else on this ship. So you can work with him, or I can call Captain Picard and tell him you're refusing to cooperate."

Q raised his hands slightly in a gesture of surrender, but his rolled eyes and "give me strength" look at the ceiling made it clear that the surrender was _extremely_ reluctant. "Fine," he sighed. "But when the kid fails miserably to understand the most basic concepts and the entire project comes grinding to a halt, don't say I didn't warn you."

"If you can teach it, I can learn it," Wesley said, because he'd been raised to be polite to everyone, even people who had gotten him stabbed with a bayonet two years ago, so he couldn't say what he really _wanted_ to say to Q.

"We'll see about that." Q slid into the seat vacated by Data, reached over Wesley to take the mug of tea that had been sitting by Wesley's seat, took a drink, and promptly spit it out back into the cup. "That's _disgusting!_ What happened to this thing? It was fine an hour ago."

"When it was hot, you mean?" Wesley asked.

Q considered that. "Hmm... yeah, that might be the difference."

"It's funny, I would have thought that a superintelligent alien being would understand the concept of heat exchange over time. If you left a hot cup of tea here an hour ago, wouldn't you expect it to be cold by now?"

Q glared at him. "Of course I would. I just wouldn't expect the primitive gustatory receptors that come with this body to _care_ nearly so much about the temperature. Iced tea tasted perfectly acceptable, but this... this is repulsive."

"It's also repulsive when people spit into their cups."

"Well, it was disgusting! Was I expected to swallow it? What if it tasted repulsive because someone had poisoned it?"

"Who would poison your tea?"

Q gave him a hard look. "Apparently, almost anyone. Or hadn't you noticed there are people trying to kill me?"

"There's a plasma energy cloud trying to kill you. The _people_ aren't trying to kill you."

"What, you don't think a plasma energy cloud is people? I assure you, Crusherling, they're more sapient than you are."

"Okay, but no people aboard this _ship_ are trying to kill you." _Yet_, Wesley thought. "And just because something tastes bad doesn't mean it's poisoned, so it's still disgusting to see you spit it out."

"Whatever. You people have so many stupid rules about what you're allowed to do or not do with your food, it's a wonder any of you have the nerve to eat anything. I'm going to get something else to drink."

He got up. Wesley pointed at the existing cup. "Take this over to the replicator and put it in."

Q looked at Wesley as if he were some sort of strange animal. "Why? I don't want _more_ of this gunk."

"Because we don't have an infinite supply of matter, so you throw anything you're not going to use back into the replicator hoppers so they can reuse it. And because nobody likes a used drinking mug sitting around taking up space. Especially if someone just spit all over it."

"Oh." Q actually looked slightly embarrassed. "I suppose I should have realized. You can't possibly have enough free energy just from matter-antimatter reactions to be able to manufacture matter out of energy every time you want." He took the cup with him over to the replicator. Wesley felt a little odd about that. He had actually just told Q to do something, and Q had done it. Maybe this wouldn't be as hard as he'd thought.

When Q came back with presumably hot tea, Wesley was continuing to pore over the math, wondering how exactly he was going to go about phrasing his questions without Q mocking him, or if in fact there _was_ any way to manage that. Q sat down next to him again. "So, wunderkind. You figured out anything from the notes Data took?"

"I think so," Wesley said, trying not to feel intimidated. He was used to sitting down next to adults, dealing with them on their own level. Some of the adults he was used to dealing with, like Commander Riker and Lieutenant Worf, were physically very tall, imposing men. Others, like Commander LaForge and Data, were very intelligent men. And Captain Picard had been a very powerful man, who disliked him, and whom Wesley had had very strong emotions about since he was a young child, given his friendship with Wesley's father and the fact that his command had gotten Wesley's father killed. All of these people had been very intimidating at the very first, and Wesley had gotten over it then. He should be able to get over it now. The problem was that Q was superintelligent, physically imposing, and while he wasn't powerful _now_ he had been... and he'd tried to kill Wesley two years ago. This was really something Wes was having a hard time just getting over. Wesley took a deep breath. Just get into the science. If he could just get his head into the science he could stop caring about anything else. "But I'm not sure what this coefficient is doing. Data wasn't clear either; he said you hadn't had a chance to go over it with him, and he couldn't figure out what it might represent."

"Well, what do you think it's for, o prodigy?"

"I'm not sure, but maybe something to do with how stable a wormhole will be if you put it in a particular region of space?"

Q's eyes went wide. "You came up with that on your own?"

"Well, yeah. Data didn't know what it does, but I've been looking at it in the context of these other equations and the notes Data took on what you two were discussing, and it _looks_ like it's supposed to be a factor in stability. But it's not related to time, and I'd think that would be the main factor in stability, so I was wondering what else could be involved in keeping a wormhole stable and I thought maybe there was something about the nature of space, or maybe some other dimension of space ��" not subspace, but maybe some deeper structure than that."

"And nobody helped you with this."

Wesley sighed. "If Data didn't know what it does then who was going to help me with it?"

"I may have misjudged you, wonder boy. That actually _is_ impressive." Q pointed at the symbol on the PADD. "This describes the, hmm, how to put this... the 'thickness' of space. The structure of spacetime -- including the related substructures such as subspace and, uh, you don't have a name for it so let's call it transspace, it's what wormholes and transwarp corridors use -- has variable, mm, density. Not density of matter, obviously, but density of structure. 'Thick' space can support wormholes and suchlike more easily than 'thin' space. And space tends to be thick near solar systems because over time gravitation pulls at the structure of space in such a way that it congeals and becomes, well, thicker. But it's much easier to tear a hole in thin space; it just won't be stable for very long."

"So how do we find out the value of this... how do you pronounce that symbol anyway?"

Q shrugged. "I don't know, make something up. It was just a doodle."

"Well, what do you call it?"

"We don't call it anything. We just know what it is. Half the problem I'm having with you people is that you don't have the words for the concepts you need, and since where I come from concepts don't _need_ to be put into words, it's not as if I can borrow a word from my own language the way you borrowed words from the Vulcans when you first got into space."

"It looks kind of like a cursive G with a lot of extra loops. Can we give it a different symbol? One with a name?"

"Oh, fine." Q scrawled something on the PADD with the stylus. "That's 'thenno'. It's the letter for the sound TH in Coristani. Since we're talking about thick and thin... and 'theta' usually means something else in math."

"Okay, so how do we derive the value of thenno?" Wesley wasn't going to ask who the Coristani were and why Q was borrowing words from _their_ language.

"Haven't the faintest. That's a technology issue. We can just _see_ it."

"What's it related to that we might be able to measure?"

"Well, gravity for starters, but with a black hole in the area most gravitometric assessments are going to be problematic. Mmm... the _exact_ speed of light, because it goes faster when space is thinner, but I'm not sure if your instruments are accurate enough. Let me think... Oh, a detailed spectral analysis of Bre'el ought to be able to tell you, because the fact that light goes slightly slower in thick space will have a Doppler effect, so you can compare the light from Bre'el _here_, in the system, to the light that reaches the nearest deep space observatory, and then get the same readings for, um, where's a good spot... Bajor. That would work."

"Why Bajor?"

"Space around Bajor is extremely thick. There's a gateway to a pocket dimension nestled into folded transspace right around there. And then measure the Badlands near the border with Cardassian space. Space there's very thin. You can use, um, damn, I can't remember the name of the planet but it's right around there. What are you doing?"

"Sending a priority message to Astrometrics. I don't have the authority to tie up the com lines by just calling the science department every time I need a scan, so I just put the request in their work queue and give it a high priority, and it gets done that way."

"An acting ensign has the authority to set priorities? Your hierarchies are even flatter than I thought."

"Well, only in emergencies." Actually, Wesley had a backdoor in the computer that allowed him to prioritize things beyond the level that his rank should allow, but he only used it when it was a matter of life or death and he didn't want to bother Commanders LaForge or Data, and besides, he was pretty sure he didn't want to tell Q he was doing it. "Once we get the scans back, will we be able to put together a scale to describe where Bre'el space is on the range and what that means for our equation here? Would you know how to do that?"

"Of course I'd know how to do that. Math's universal, Crusher. I may know more nifty math tricks than you do, but I can do math at your level as well as you can do simple arithmetic." Q pointed at another symbol in the equation. "So can you figure out what this is?"

"That's easy. That's the differential of the gravity between the source and the target for your wormhole."

"Data told you that."

"Data told me I was right when I asked if that was what it was."

"Well. This _might_ actually work."

After that it was a lot easier than Wesley had expected. Q was still often obnoxious, insulting and rude, still mocked Wesley or snapped at him for small mistakes, was frequently sarcastic, and had no concept of personal space... but he also seemed to have acquired a grudging respect for Wesley's intelligence, which despite every reason Wesley had to hate Q was actually flattering, because Q was a genius. It wasn't just that he knew vastly more than Wesley did, or than anyone Wesley knew except the Traveler did; that probably came with the territory of being an ancient, superpowerful entity from an immensely advanced civilization. It was that, despite knowing next to nothing about their technology, Q could look at the specifications Wesley showed him, once he had explained the nature of space and the challenges involved in creating and stabilizing a wormhole well enough that Wesley could come up with technological proposals, read them over, and declare whether or not the proposed solution would do what they needed... and then Wesley would run the computer simulation and Q would turn out to be right. At first Wesley had thought Q was being obstructionist and defeatist, because he didn't think anything would work. As they got deeper into the work, though, Wesley realized that Q was being a realist. Nothing they'd come up with so far _would_ work.

Q was plainly fading, though. The speed with which he could read through Wesley's specs was decreasing, he was spacing out and needing Wes to repeat himself fairly often, his eyes kept glazing over when he wasn't reading, and finally Wesley caught his eyelids drooping. "Q, do you need to take a nap or something?"

Q started, eyes snapping wide open, and then shook his head rapidly. "I'm awake. I'm not falling asleep. What is it?"

Wesley didn't know how to handle this. Adults could take care of their own bodies in his experience; he'd never had an adult falling asleep on him, then denying he was doing it. "You just almost fell asleep here at the desk."

"I was just resting my eyes. They hurt. The lighting in this engineering room is terrible."

"Look, if you need to get some sleep we can finish this later."

"We don't have _time._ At best we've got half a day before tidal stresses start doing damage to Bre'el III, maybe a day and a half before one of its three moons actually crashes into the planet. I can't afford to spend any time being unconscious right now."

"Yeah, but you're not very useful if you're falling asleep."

Q glared at his teacup. He had drunk five of them in the past hour and a half. "Troi said that drinking tea would help me stay awake."

"It will, it's got caffeine in it. But first of all coffee's got more, so why are you drinking tea if you're trying to stay awake?"

"Does coffee taste anything like raktajino?"

"Um... yeah, the way that black pepper tastes like jalapeno pepper."

"Having never had either, I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Raktajino's like coffee on enhancers. It's about three times as strong as coffee and has an even more bitter taste. If you put enough sugar and cream in coffee it tastes pretty good, but there's nothing you can do to raktajino to make it stop tasting bitter."

"I'll try coffee."

"How long have you been up, anyway?"

"I haven't the foggiest. When did I arrive on this ship?"

"I'm not sure, because I wasn't on duty when you showed up, but I think it was around 1500 hours yesterday or something."

"And what time is it now?"

"1730 hours."

"So, since Picard let me out of his oubliette around 1900 hours last night, and I'd been asleep shortly before that... 22 hours, I suppose."

Wesley shook his head. "And you've had how many cups of tea?"

"I wasn't counting."

"I counted at least five. Did you have any earlier today?"

"A few when Troi and I were working on the te... the thing we were working on."

"If you've been up for 22 hours and you've had that much caffeinated tea, I don't know how much coffee's going to help. Come here. I'm going to have to introduce you to a Crusher All-Nighter Special."

"A what?"

Wesley walked over to the replicator. "Insomerium 5 cc's, neoephedrine 2 cc's. Crusher authorization alpha seven twenty-five." He extracted the hypo from the replicator and showed it to Q. "When you absolutely, positively, can't take time to sleep or people will end up dead."

"I had no idea the wonder child was _also_ allowed to prescribe drugs."

This had been something of a risk. Wes swallowed. He'd assumed that Q wouldn't know enough to know that insomerium was a restricted substance, only replicatable by doctors. "I, uh, don't tell anybody, okay? I don't actually have the authority."

Q blinked at him. "Then how'd you do it?"

Wesley sighed. "You can copy one account's access privileges to another account if the computer thinks they're the same account. I created a corrupt account with my voiceprint and my mother's information and password, and merged them to get her access privileges, and then since the voiceprints were the same I could merge the account with my own. So, uh, yeah, I can get anything the chief medical officer can." At Q's look, Wesley hastily clarified. "Look, I'm not irresponsible with this stuff. I've learned a lot about medicine from living with my mom, and I used to study it when I was a kid, when I thought I'd be a doctor too when I grew up and I hadn't decided to do engineering instead. I know the risks and the side effects, and I don't do this kind of thing unless it's necessary. It's just... my mom will say no, you have to sleep, because... well, because you're you. She won't cut you the kind of slack she'd cut anyone in Starfleet or anyone who actually works in engineering; she'll do the right thing medically and she won't give you any leeway to argue, because... what you did to me. She won't violate her oath, but if she can do something to annoy you or stop you from getting what you want because her idea is better from a medical perspective, she'll do it. And you're right that we've got to solve this, or figure out that we _can't_ solve it and move on to something else, as soon as possible, and I can't do it by myself. So, uh, here."

Q smiled broadly. "Dear child, were you under the misapprehension that I thought _less_ of you for breaking the rules? I'd begun to believe you have half a brain on you already, but now I discover that you're no Boy Scout after all -- that you are perfectly able and willing to break the regulations you live by if it allows you to accomplish what you think you need to do? Now I _am_ impressed."

"I'm not trying to impress you," Wesley snapped. "I'm just trying to help you stay awake so we can save the people on Bre'el III."

"People who are trying to impress me rarely do," Q said. He gestured at the hypo in Wesley's hand. "Now, explain to me what this stuff actually does."

"Neoephedrine is like adrenaline, only it's weaker and bound to a time-release agent. So instead of a quick, sharp spike in your level of alertness, that drops off and makes you more tired afterward, it's a long-term, slower arousal that simply keeps you more alert and awake for several hours. And insomerium breaks down a chemical that your brain produces which tells your body that it's time to go to sleep, and blocks the receptors for that chemical so for a while you _can't_ feel sleepy. It'll keep you awake and alert for about four or five hours and then the bottom will drop out and you'll _have_ to go to sleep."

"Well, what would happen if I took more then?"

Wesley frowned. "People can go up to three weeks without sleep with the proper medical regimen, but it's really, really bad for their health. They stop being able to properly regulate their sugar balance, and they risk all kinds of metabolic disorders, and your mind goes too. You lose the ability to remember things properly or to memorize them in the first place, you start hallucinating, all kinds of things. Plus, people can get addicted to it, or psychologically dependent, which is worse -- we can treat addiction, but it's hard to get people to break a dependency."

"What would happen to me if I took the drugs for three days?"

"I don't know. And I'm not going to help you do that, because I'm not a doctor. When we're in an emergency and no one can afford to take time to sleep, my mom will come down here and prescribe this mix for everyone, but she usually only lets people have two doses, and that's people who've only been up for eighteen hours at most. You're already on twenty-two hours, so I don't know if there's a good medical reason why she doesn't let people stay up more than twenty-four, and I can't ask her without telling her what I did."

Q stared at Wesley for several seconds. "Well. Let me share something with you, then, since you were good enough to trust me with your little secret. It won't actually matter if ten doses of this stuff gives me a morphogenetic virus that turns my heart muscle into a giant bloody red snowflake and my intestines into tapioca pudding, because I'm not going to live long enough for it to matter. I don't want to spend any part of the next three days sleeping because that's all the time I've _got._"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that in approximately three days, give or take a few hours to spare, the Calamarain are going to kill me. So it really doesn't matter what sort of long-term damage I do to my health."

Wesley was horrified. "Do Commander LaForge and Commander Data know about this?"

"No, and it's not any of their business so I didn't tell them. I wouldn't be telling _you_ except to disabuse you of the notion that it matters in the slightest what health issues the medications I take now might have on me in six months, given that corpses rarely need to worry about their health. Picard knows, and he's the only one who needs to."

"But -- I mean -- the Captain isn't just going to _let_ the Calamarain kill you! I mean... we were shielding from them before..." Wesley trailed off as he realized that they had been unshielded for nearly two hours now and no Calamarain attack had occurred. "Is that why they're not attacking?"

"Yes, that's why," Q said shortly. "And I really prefer not to dwell on it, so can we get back to work? You keep me supplied with this stuff, I keep being able to advise you people, we save Bre'el III from its troubles and stop Bre'el IV's moon from falling on _it_ and the day is saved and in the end everyone's happy, even the Calamarain."

"Except you," Wesley pointed out.

"Yes, well, being human is such a dull and painful existence that I'm sure I'll be happier this way in the long run." This was obviously not what he really thought, because Q's voice was cracking slightly and his eyes were suspiciously bright. "Just _give_ me your wakeup pills, boy genius. I'm too tired to think straight and my eyes feel like they're conducting an experiment in cold fusion."

Wesley handed him the hypo, stunned. "Did... no, he wouldn't. Captain Picard's not... not going to hand you over to them, is he?"

"If he knows what's good for his little ship, he will," Q said. "Or at least not stand in the way when I hand myself over. How does this work? I just push it against my neck?"

"Like this," Wesley said, taking the hypo and injecting Q with it. Q took a deep breath.

"Well. That's an improvement already. Let's get back to work, shall we?"

Wesley followed him back to the desk. "Was this... was this _your_ idea?"

Q turned on him. "Crusher, I explained this to you already. I don't want to _discuss_ this. I only brought it up in the first place so you wouldn't assume I have a long-term future to worry about when you consider whether or not to give me medication to stay awake."

"I just... this doesn't make sense. Captain Picard wouldn't sacrifice you."

"No, he's entirely too stupid to. Sad, really, but apparently the only way you humans have managed to achieve the high level of moral behavior you've accomplished is to codify your ethical beliefs into some sort of immutable list of Thou Shalt Not's and follow it rigorously, like a computer following a program, no real thought given to the consequences. So as the more advanced life form in the situation, it falls on _me_ to make the hard but necessary choices, since Picard still lives in a fantasyland where every problem can be solved with no loss of life if you just assemble a committee to study the issues hard enough." He looked away. "Picard thinks he can solve the problem without my death. More power to him for trying, and I appreciate the gesture, foolish as it is... but it's not going to work. I bought three days of life off the Calamarain by promising them the pleasure of seeing me voluntarily march to my death at their hands at the end, and I wouldn't have done _that_ much, given how pathetically short three days is, except that I'm supposed to advise you on how to save these idiots, and if we don't get _on_ with it they will all die and my sacrifice will be for absolutely nothing, so how about you _stop_ asking me questions on this topic that is _none_ of your business and we can get back to work!"

LaForge came over to them. "Is there a problem here, Q?"

"No. No problem." It was probably obvious to Commander LaForge that Q wasn't telling the truth; Q was breathing hard, his face sheened with sweat and his skin flushed, and if Wesley could see that much, Commander LaForge and his VISOR could probably see a whole lot more.

"I could have sworn I just heard you shouting at Wesley."

"It's okay, Commander. I just... I asked a question that was really kind of rude, and he said he didn't want to answer that, and then I asked it again."

"_You_ were rude to _Q._" Commander LaForge's voice made it clear that he thought this was on the order of Data scratching and hissing at Spot.

"Yeah, I guess I was. I'm sorry for causing a disruption." He turned to Q. "And I'm sorry I asked. It really was rude of me."

Q looked amazed. He probably didn't usually get apologies... since most of the time, probably anything anyone ever did to him was more than deserved. "I accept your apology," he said, sounding surprised.

LaForge looked back and forth between the two of them as if he really didn't believe Wesley's story for a moment, but couldn't figure out why Wesley would be lying to cover for Q. Finally he said, "Well, engineering's not the place to have a shouting match, guys. How about a little more working and a little less yelling, huh?"

"Fine," Q grumbled.

* * *

The next couple of hours were very frustrating.

Q went from being tired, slow, mumbling and occasionally glazing over completely to being totally wired. He talked too fast, too loudly, kept getting out of his seat to pace frantically in circles around Wesley and the desk, and gesticulated so wildly that several times he almost hit Wesley in the face by accident. When Wesley demanded that he actually sit down, Q would not only tap his foot or fidget with his fingers relentlessly, but when Wesley asked him to stop doing _that_ too, he first refused to believe that he was actually doing it, and when Wes pointed it out to him and he tried to stop, his leg just twitched involuntarily in an almost constant jerky tic until he got frustrated and got up to pace again. Obviously, even as exhausted as Q had been, the stimulant had been a bad idea. The three cups of coffee Q consumed probably didn't help any. He was also irritable and snappish -- not that he hadn't been before, but now he'd interrupt with insults before Wesley even finished explaining his approach.

None of that was the frustrating part, although it didn't help Wesley's mood any. The really frustrating part was that nothing they tried worked. Q might be irritable and hyper, but he was on his game; he was very quick to identify problems with approaches Wesley suggested, which always turned out to be accurate when they went through the math or ran a simulation, and he was equally quick to propose solutions, which always turned out to be technologically infeasible. Wesley had a good grip on the conceptual framework by now, and a good understanding of the engineering requirements for doing what they needed... he _knew_ what they'd have to do, but they didn't have the power or the equipment to do it. The basic problem was that space had thinned in response to the black hole's transit, and worse, was warped out of shape by the gravitational forces. It was possible, just barely, to punch a wormhole open here, but it would be next to impossible to pick where it would open out, and completely impossible to keep it stable. There was no way they could create an artificial wormhole stable enough to transport anything through, let alone people.

Around 2000 hours, Wesley gave up and headed over to tell Commander LaForge the bad news. Q stayed back at the desk, running various last minute simulations. Wesley was pretty sure Q had actually given up hope that they could solve the problem a long time ago and was simply running the simulations because he was bored, but until LaForge reassigned them it wasn't like there was something more useful he could be doing. "We can't make it work, Commander," he said dejectedly. "The full output of the warp engines at maximum wouldn't provide enough power to stabilize it enough to safely beam anything through, and I think we'd need to build a specialized device to govern where the output of the wormhole would be anyway."

"All right, Wes," LaForge said. "That's disappointing, but I've had an idea. We don't actually need to beam people to Bre'el VII at all. Space stations with impulse engines would be more than capable of resisting the gravitational pull...heck, we could put rocket thrusters on them and that would be enough. So I think we want to concentrate on programming self-replicating fabricators to build habitats rapidly, maybe on the planet itself on the far side. We'd want to finish ironing out the bugs in antimatter replication, but I think we're close."

"Is that what you want me working on?"

"Yeah, you've got some experience with that. The other thing we could be doing is calculating if it's possible to destroy any of the Bre'el III satellites. The planet isn't fully terraformed; they've only got one continent with people on it. We just _might_ be able to bring down the satellites in a controlled way so they impact the far side and don't have any effect on the people. Maybe we can break the satellites into bite-size chunks and then get the bigger chunks to come down on the opposite side of the planet."

"That might work, I guess. All three of Bre'el III's moons are only about half as massive, all put together, as Bre'el IV's moon by itself. And the atmosphere on Bre'el III's so thick we could get some good burnup on atmospheric entry, so if the chunks are small enough they'll never even hit."

"Yeah, that's the idea. We can run some feasibility simulations on that, and also work on programming the fabricators to churn out some habitats. Did you get anything to eat yet?"

"Not yet."

"I can give you half an hour to head over to Ten-Forward if you want, but you have to drag Q with you. I can't spare Data to make sure he gets fed."

"We'll just get something from the engineering replicators and eat it here. Do you have a new assignment for him, sir?"

"Mm, I might put him on the feasibility analysis. It's pretty pure math, and it looks like he's figured out how to use the computer to run simulations pretty well."

Wesley went back to the desk. "Any luck?" he asked Q.

"Yes, while you were gone I magically figured out a way to alter the physical laws of the universe _without_ using my powers." Q looked up, scowling. "What do you think, boy wonder?"

_I think my name is Ensign Crusher, not wunderkind, boy wonder, or Crusherling._ "Commander LaForge is reassigning us, but he says we can get some dinner before that."

"I'm not hungry."

"I'm not shocked. Stimulants can suppress people's appetite." Wesley took a deep breath. "That thing we discussed about not sleeping, and stimulants?"

"Yeah?"

"It's turned out to be a bad idea. I don't think I should give you any more."

Q's scowl deepened. "I told you long-term health risks aren't exactly a concern here."

"I know, but I don't want to have to explain to my mom and Captain Picard why you keeled over from a heart attack in a day or so."

"A _heart attack_?" Q snorted. "Really? Is that your expert medical opinion?"

"I'm not a doctor. That's why I don't want to take the risk. Look, Q, you've had way too much. You can't sit still--"

"That's normal, I never sit still."

"��"your legs keep twitching and jerking, you're talking too loud--"

"I thought my voice was at a perfectly reasonable volume."

"��"you keep almost hitting me when you wave your hands around, and you _keep interrupting me._"

"I interrupt people all the time too. Usually because their topic of conversation is too boring to endure any more of than I have to."

"Well, I'm sorry, but it doesn't matter if you're bored by this conversation or not. You're acting completely wired. I think you've had way too many stimulants, between the drug I gave you and all the caffeine, and since I'm not a doctor I can't take the risk that you could overdose or something. We aren't going to need you much for the next big thing ��" Commander LaForge might ask you to run some simulations on destroying the Bre'el III moons, but that shouldn't be too hard and if you don't do it, any of us could. You could go get some sleep."

"I'm not tired. And I've already explained that the time I have left is far too short to waste any of it on unconsciousness."

"You're not tired because you've had too many stimulants. When they wear off, you'll be tired. I'm not going to get you more stimulants when that happens. You need to get some sleep."

"_Why_ do I need to go to sleep? If your medical technology can allow human beings to go without sleep for a few days without serious ill effects kicking in right away, I see no good reason why I should sleep. If I put it off for three days it'll be a non-issue."

"Because not all humans _can_ safely go without sleep for three days without serious ill effects kicking in right away. If, for example, something the Calamarain did to you weakened your heart, and my mom didn't do anything about it because she figured it would heal on its own in a few weeks, you might have a heart attack because you took too many stimulants. And besides, you don't know for sure that you're going to die in three days; I'm sure Captain Picard is working on a way to try to save you. He'd never just _sacrifice_ someone unless there was absolutely no choice."

"That would be the problem, Crusher. There's absolutely no choice. Picard thinks maybe he can figure out a solution, but I know perfectly well he can't. The Calamarain are much more intelligent than you people are. You can't fight them unless you take them by surprise and you've got nothing to negotiate with them with. And I honestly don't see why you're so obsessed with reiterating that Captain Picard will save the day, unless it's your daddy issues with him coming out. I fully expect that in three days when you're sitting on scans and pick up the reading for my cold and lifeless body, you'll get out of your seat on the bridge and do a little jig, so why pretend my health matters to you?"

"I don't want you dead," Wesley said, shaking his head. "I mean, after what you did to me, maybe I _should_, but I don't."

Q blinked. "What did I do to you? Today is the first time we've even had a _conversation._"

Q didn't even _remember_ what he'd done? Angrily Wesley said, "Your animal things stabbed me in the back with a bayonet! How do you forget something like that? Or have you gotten so many mortals killed over the centuries none of their deaths or almost-deaths even stick in your head?"

"You didn't almost die!" Q snapped. "Riker healed you within five seconds!"

"And what if he hadn't? Don't tell me _you_ were going to!"

"I didn't need to. I knew Riker would do it."

"Just like you knew he would take your offer and become a Q, right?"

Q shook his head. "No, Crusher. I knew there was a _possibility_ he could refuse me; I just didn't seriously think he was going to, as I had no idea how fundamentally unimaginative, not to mention surgically grafted to Picard's apron strings, Riker was. But I knew he couldn't stop himself from saving you and Microbrain, because I know what it takes to resist using Q powers. Our power responds to our thoughts, to our very desires in the moment they form; it takes millennia of training in _not_ using them to be able to resist, and under severe emotional stress like Riker was under, _most_ Q would fail to restrain themselves. The only way Riker could have kept himself from saving you and Worf is if he really hadn't given a damn whether you lived or died."

"Then how did he stop himself from saving all those colonists?"

"Because 'people will die if I don't do something' is different, in your tiny, linear human brains, from 'people did die because I didn't do anything'. You didn't evolve to think of bringing people back to life as having the same urgency as stopping them from dying, due to the obvious fact that the vast majority of you have no ability to reverse death whatsoever... and if I'd given the powers to your mother, well, aside from the fact that the Q Continuum would have had to not only strip me of my powers but commit me to a mental institution for congenital idiocy, _she_ wouldn't have been able to stop herself from healing the dead, because she thinks in terms of healing the dying. Riker simply doesn't think of himself as someone who can save dead people, so there was no emotional urgency to the colonists' plight after they were mostly all dead. His desire to use his powers to save them was intellectual, the same as his desire to age you into a completely nondescript adult or get Worf a girlfriend. We can override intellectual desires easily; it's the emotions that get us." Q took a sip of his most recent cup of coffee. "You were never in any danger. None of you were. I put you in that situation precisely because if one of you got hurt, Riker wouldn't be able to stop himself, and if he used the powers, I thought he'd be that much more likely not to want to give them up."

"Well, I didn't know that. And it hurt! I mean, even if it was only for a few seconds -- and it seemed like a lot more to me -- it really hurt. I heard you weren't too happy about Guinan stabbing you with a _fork_, in the hand. Can you even _imagine_ what it's like to be stabbed through the guts with a bayonet?"

"What did you expect? You ran out onto a battlefield with no weapons to try to... what? Go to the aid and comfort of a downed Klingon warrior? You're not a doctor and you had no weapons, so what exactly did you think you were doing, running onto the battlefield to go save Worf?"

"I was a _kid._ Yeah, what I did was stupid, but I don't think I deserved to die for it."

"And you didn't die. Obviously, as you are standing here in front of me being self-righteous. So you learned an important lesson about not stupidly running out onto battlefields where people are getting killed, and all you had to suffer for it was five seconds of the pain of being stabbed with a bayonet. Which, I'm sure, was quite excruciating for five seconds, but it was _five seconds._ I'll trade you those five seconds for _any_ of the Calamarain attacks I've suffered so far."

"I'd make that trade," Wesley said. "You don't have any concept of how much being stabbed hurts."

"Fine. Mea culpa. I let a poorly assembled, fifth-tier, seriously subpar nightmare creature stab you. I should definitely have made sure that if I was going to stab you, I should have done it with some really _good_ nightmare creatures instead of the things I spent about three picoseconds doodling out before creating them."

"I don't really care how much time you spent designing those animal creatures! That's not the point!"

"Says _you_. I'm ashamed. I used to take pride in my work." Q sighed deeply. "Isn't that always the way? You start out really focused on getting all the tiny details right, trying to do the best job you can... but then the boredom sets in, and you cut corners, and skimp on the details, and stick wild boar heads on humanoids with bayonets and energy weapons, and the next thing you know your performance review turns into a firing squad and you get canned for poor performance, and you end up on the street begging with your hat in your hand."

Wesley realized that there was no point to this. Either Q honestly didn't see what he'd done as wrong, or he just was never going to admit any guilt to Wesley. "Look. This conversation isn't getting either of us anywhere. Do you want me to go order you some food, or not? Because if you're not going to eat, then you should go to Commander LaForge and get your next assignment."

"I'm not hungry. In fact I'm finding the entire concept of ingesting dead organic material slightly nauseating at the moment."

"That'll last until the stimulants start to wear off. And then you're going to be _really_ hungry."

"Well, then that's when I'll eat. Go do whatever you need to do. I'll find out what LaForge wants me to do."

* * *

LaForge glanced up at Q, and could immediately see that he wasn't particularly well. He was too warm, too flushed, and the faint color gradations that LaForge could see at a humanoid's throat as the blood pulsed through their veins were cycling too rapidly, indicating too fast a heart rate. "You don't look so good, Q. Do you need to go to sickbay or something?"

"No, I need something else to do, now that our last plan has crashed and burned spectacularly. Wonder Boy said something about you wanting to simulate destroying the Bre'el III moons? Why exactly would you want to do that?"

"Because we might have to. The orbits are too complex to try the trick we're pulling on Bre'el IV's moon, even if the Ferengi and Kaeloids show up with warp-capable ships in time. And I don't seriously think that even with self-replicating fabricators we're going to be able to evacuate five hundred thousand people in two days. But Bre'el III is only partially terraformed; everyone lives on a single continent, and they've already got domes and massive air scrubbing plants. If we can bring down the moons on the far side of the planet, well away from the ocean and on the opposite side from the inhabited region, we _might_ be able to control the crash well enough that by the time the shockwave reaches the inhabited regions it's reduced to a Richter 5 earthquake... big, but manageable. And the dust cloud shouldn't cause an artificial winter condition or ice age, because of the air scrubbers... in order to live on the planet at all they've had to get large quantities of ionized dust particles out of the air already. They could do it again if they had to."

"Hmm." Q frowned slightly as if concentrating. "I didn't actually know that. Under those circumstances you may be right... the best outcome might be to assume we can't stop the moons from crashing and just work on making sure they crash where they'll do the least harm. Have you got detailed specs from the Science Council on exactly where the people are?"

"Yeah, they're already in the computer. I noticed you figured out how to run simulations."

"Well, I can't exactly test my theories in pocket dimensions with replicas of the things I want to affect anymore, so simulations in the computer is the best I'm going to be able to manage."

"But you're at least familiar with the concept of running a simulation first before you actually do something."

"How stupid do I look?" Q asked angrily. "Of _course_ I'm familiar with the concept of running a simulation first. I've been doing this kind of thing since before the first slime molds formed DNA on your misbegotten planet! How could you even _ask_ if I know what a simulation is? What part of 'millions of years old' makes you think I'm an idiot?"

LaForge took a step backwards, literally taken aback by Q's belligerence. He put his hands up. "Calm down! No one's saying you're stupid, Q, but I have no idea how you did the things you used to do. For all I knew you've never needed to run a simulation because you used to be able to just make things work the first time. I know there's things we have to do that you're not familiar with, and I'm just making sure that this isn't one of them."

"Oh." Q was breathing hard, a little raggedly. "Oh, I guess that makes sense."

LaForge took a long steady look at Q. "I was going to have you run those simulations," he said, "but after that outburst I think maybe we'd all be better off if you got some rest."

"I'm not tired. Why does everyone keep trying to put me to bed, like a toddler who needs to take a nap?"

_Because you're acting like an overtired toddler?_ "You _really_ don't look good, Q. And your voice is raspy. When did you wake up this morning?"

"I wasn't watching the clock. And I'm fine. I don't need to rest."

"Are you sure? This isn't like the theory behind wormholes. Anyone here can do the job. I don't mind having the extra pair of hands, when we've got so much going on, but it doesn't actually need to be _you_. You can take some time off, get some dinner, get some sleep..."

"I'm not hungry either. I'm fine, LaForge. I can do the simulations."

He wasn't shouting, but there was a sharpness in his voice, just a little bit of the belligerence that had been there before. LaForge took a deep breath. "Q, you are really on edge. You're shouting at people over nothing, you sound extremely irritable... I think I'm going to have to give you the time off whether you think you're fine or not."

"No, wait!" Q's heart rate spiked, and his temperature pattern shifted as if he'd just broken out into a cold sweat. "Please, I won't do it again. I -- I'm sorry. I know I've been irritable lately... this whole being human thing is putting a lot of stress on me. I'm sorry I snapped. Please, I can still be helpful."

Weird. For some reason the thought of being released from Engineering was terrifying Q. Or at the least he showed all the symptoms of being on the verge of a panic attack. LaForge wondered why that was, but it wasn't really his problem; he could use the help if Q was this adamant about it, and the fact that the entity had actually _apologized_, apparently sincerely, impressed him. "Okay, but you're on probation. Flip out at anyone the way you just did to me, for any reason, and you're out of here until you've gotten some food and some sleep."

"I understand." Q was nodding his head rapidly. It was actually a little disturbing -- Q was behaving as if LaForge had threatened to beat him up or arrest him or some other terrible thing, and had just now reprieved him, not like someone who just wanted to stay and do a job. What was he so afraid of? Had Captain Picard told him he'd be thrown off the ship if he wasn't helpful? That could explain it, LaForge supposed.

"You do know that you're allowed to go off shift eventually, right? No one thinks you can go indefinitely without food and sleep. Humans need to do those things, that's just the way we are. No one's going to hold it against you if you take the time you need."

Q shook his head, as rapidly as he had nodded before. "That's not -- I'm not worried about that. I just -- we don't have a lot of time, and I wasted a lot of time today going down a blind alley to a dead end. As long as I _can_ keep working, I'd rather do that."

LaForge was pretty sure that this could not possibly be about Q's sincere sense of urgency for the innocent people on Bre'el III, but he was at a loss to figure out why Q would be so obsessed with being helpful if he didn't have something like Picard's continued tolerance riding on it. However, it _really_ wasn't his problem. Let Counselor Troi worry about Q's mental state. If Q wanted to help, and could control his temper, LaForge could use him. "Okay. As long as you don't snap at anyone, you can stay and do the simulations. If you get hungry before you're done, you can replicate yourself something over there; we mostly use that thing for coffee and donuts, but it's a full-service food grade replicator, so you can get yourself a pizza or dorowat or something. Just nothing that'll make a big mess all over the consoles."

"You know more about what humans eat than Data does. If I do start to feel hungry, can I ask you what I should get?"

"You probably wouldn't like my favorites, Q. I'm a big fan of spicy food. My dad used to make the most amazing peppered fish... Anyway, I think you'd be better off asking Wesley."

"He's mad at me because I got him stabbed with a bayonet for approximately five seconds."

"Well, he's got a right to be mad at you. Getting people stabbed with a bayonet, even for approximately five seconds, is the kind of thing that's why no one likes you. But he's only got one job right now, and I've got to monitor all of them, so he's got more time to help you than I do."

Q sighed. "Fine. If I get hungry, I'll ask him what to eat."

"Or you could just get pizza. That's what most human engineers eat on the job."

"I'm getting sick just thinking about food right now. Let me go do that job for you, and I'll worry about food if and when my appetite comes back."

For a few moments, LaForge watched him go, until he'd gotten back to his seat. Then he shrugged and went back to the work he was doing with Data on antimatter replication.

The work continued. It was getting quite late, and LaForge had had a long, long day. 2100 hours... damn. He'd been on duty since 0530 this morning. LaForge yawned. "Data, I'm thinking about turning in. Does Captain Picard need you on the bridge for night shift, or can you stay down here and hold down the fort?"

"Since we are continuing to push the Bre'el IV moon, and will be continuing to do so for another five hours, I believe it would indeed be best if I remained here. I am not required to be on the bridge tonight." As Data didn't need sleep, and since he was the second officer, he had taken command of the bridge every night shift back during the first few months since _Enterprise's_ maiden voyage. But eventually, Picard had told him that it was unfair to expect him to work around the clock simply because he didn't physically need rest, and gave him leave to work the same shifts everyone else did so he would have personal time. The bridge would be managed by a night shift lieutenant, as was traditional. Data wanted the command experience, though, so every few nights he did in fact take the bridge on the night shift.

"Well, then I think I'm going to head off to bed. Good night, Data."

"Good night, Geordi. Sleep well."

LaForge turned, and almost ran smack into Q, who had come up behind him. "Wha��"Q? What do you need? I'm going off shift."

Q's voice was extremely hoarse. "I'm done. You want the simulations now or tomorrow?"

"You're _done?_ Didn't I put you on that twenty minutes ago?"

"I prefer not to be enslaved to the chronometer, so I honestly have no idea. Why? Is that a long or short period of time?"

"Twenty minutes is... pretty short for a full series of sims. How many scenarios did you get?"

"Twelve, in the end, though I only recommend five."

LaForge frowned. Twelve successful sims? "How many did you run?"

"Sixteen. I was going to do seventeen, and then I remembered that you humans have ridiculous superstitions about the number thirteen so I decided to stop at twelve scenarios."

"No one's superstitious about the number thirteen any more, Q. Show me your sims." Twelve out of sixteen successes would explain why he was done this fast, but was itself highly implausible... it would imply that he had an unbelievably good rate of picking likely scenarios to test in the first place. LaForge would have assumed that such a success rate was impossible for anyone but Data or a Vulcan if he hadn't seen Q figure out that there was a black hole that none of their sensors had detected on the basis of five minutes of looking at a viewscreen while whining about how much his back hurt. But he still thought he'd better check it before heading to bed.

"Oh, do you want me to run the seventeenth then?"

"No, twelve successes is more than plenty. Let me take a look." He sat down in the chair and pulled up Q's simulations. "Why did you run so many, anyway? I mean, most of us need to run twenty sims to get one success, so I suppose if you were having such a high success rate it explains why you got so many scenarios, but why twelve? Normally we have four or five."

"Well, I'm hardly an expert on your technology, as we've established earlier today, and some of my scenarios might have been... tactically impractical. I mean, if you use up all the photon torpedoes and run most of the power to the phasers you can get a very good result, very quickly, but I guessed that possibly Captain Picard might not want to leave the ship quite so defenseless. So I thought I'd run a large number of them so you would have the widest possible range to pick from, since I wanted to make sure that at least _some_ of the scenarios would be practical given your limitations. I _think_ I've isolated the best five as the ones that seem to fit the specs for your ship's capabilities with the widest margin of error, but since I'm not an expert I wanted to have as many of those as possible too."

That was impressive. Being able to pick so many good scenarios to test in the first place might be an artifact of Q's experience and knowledge, but LaForge would have guessed that that same experience and knowledge would have led Q to decide that he knew the best strategy and so he'd simply pick out one, without any concept as to whether or not their technology or other limitations would make that implausible. If Q had really run twelve good scenarios and gotten five that were well within _Enterprise's_ tolerances, that was a lot better than LaForge had expected of him. It seemed he might have taken his mistake with the gravitational constant to heart.

LaForge reviewed the scenarios. Q was right, some of them were completely impractical. Skimming the atmosphere to get the best angle from which to hit the moons in such a way that they would be knocked entirely out of orbit as they were destroyed would be a great idea on a planet with a much thinner atmosphere, but there was no way _Enterprise_ could descend that low into an atmosphere as thick as Bre'el III's without taking serious damage from it. The one that involved using up all the photon torpedoes probably would be rejected for tactical reasons by Worf, as it would effectively leave the _Enterprise_ defenseless. The idea about using some of the ship's antimatter supply was right out, even if they _did_ figure out how to replicate antimatter, because apparently Q was unaware that the Starfleet engineering philosophy of antimatter handling was not to do it, ever, unless there was absolutely no other way. But some of the ideas seemed really workable. He'd have to have a full discussion with an engineering team in the morning, with a fresh mind, but a few of these looked pretty good, and he said so.

"You should go get some sleep, Q," he added. "There's nothing else you need to get done here tonight."

Q shook his head. "I'm not tired," he said stubbornly.

This was obviously a lie. His voice was hoarse, he kept rubbing his eyes, and he looked even worse than he had before... his heart rate had slowed and his temperature had dropped, so he didn't look feverish and panicked any more, but the colors of his body temperature indicated that his core temp was dropping, the way it did for most humans late at night when they were tired whether they were actually asleep or not. But LaForge wasn't his dad. "Well, you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here," he said. "I'm leaving for the night and you should too."

Again Q shook his head. "I... my quarters are mind-numbingly dull. Can't I just stay here in engineering and continue to work until I get tired?"

"I've got nothing for you to work _on_." And he'd need Q to have a fresh mind in the morning, which wouldn't happen if Q kept pushing himself to stay up. Seriously, was he millions of years old going on four?

"There has to be something. Maybe something unrelated to this current crisis that could use my expertise, if you have nothing else. Or maybe I could help with the antimatter."

LaForge latched on to that. This idea would keep Q out of the way. "Actually, that's not a bad idea... but you're not up to speed on the technology, so here's what I want you to do. Go in my office over there so you don't disturb anyone, shut the door, and go over the tech specs for the transporter and replicator systems. The computer's already set up to give you access to anything you need that isn't classified; I had your voiceprint ident temporarily assigned to the engineering pool. You can get some food from the replicators if you want before you go in; I eat at my desk all the time, so I don't mind if you do as long as you don't make a mess."

Q smiled tiredly. "It can't be a very challenging field of study. I'm sure I'll have a full grasp of your systems by the time you come back to Engineering tomorrow."

"I hope you're right. We've got a team on Bre'el III working in tandem with us on the project, so we hope to have it resolved pretty quickly, but we could use the help if you can train yourself up to be helpful. And if you don't stay up all night and then oversleep in the morning."

"I won't oversleep. I don't even _like_ sleeping."

"Trust me, it's a lot more fun when you're really tired than when you're just too bored to do anything else."

"What's fun about all the energy draining out of your body like your brain is a bathtub and someone just pulled out the plug?"

"The problem is that the energy drains whether you're awake or asleep. When you sleep, you replenish it. Maybe you don't like sleeping so much, but trust me, staying awake when you're exhausted is much worse."

"Did you say engineers eat pizza?"

For a moment LaForge had trouble following the non sequitur, until he realized that Q probably never had gotten around to eating dinner. "Yeah, that's simple enough that you probably can't go wrong. Order yourself a cheese slice, a pepperoni slice and a Gomez Vegetarian Special and see which one you like best, and then you can get more of whichever one you like if you're still hungry."

"What's a Gomez Vegetarian Special?"

"It's Sonia's recipe. It's got peppers and onions and spinach and black beans and Tocarian mushrooms and five different cheeses."

"I have no idea what any of those things are. Except cheese, isn't that what was inside the little rolled up meat things with the squishy white stuff inside, at the conference today?"

"Yeah, that was cream cheese. There's a lot of different kinds of cheeses. The Brie dip for the carrots and broccoli was cheese, too. If you liked the salami -- that was the meat stuff around the cream cheese -- you'll probably like pepperoni. Besides, since you don't know what anything is, you should make it a point to keep trying new things, learn as much as you can about being human, right? I mean, six months from now you don't want to be still eating nothing but salami with cream cheese."

Q's colors changed. His heart rate went up, he started to sweat again, and the muscles in his face changed in some subtle way that LaForge couldn't quite make out. Possibly a person with normal eyesight would be able to tell what Q's expression had just changed to; LaForge couldn't, but the things he could see indicated that something he'd just said had upset or frightened Q. "Hey, is something wrong?"

"Absolutely nothing," Q said, and LaForge wondered if he should point out to Q what his VISOR allowed him to see and how he knew Q was lying, except firstly he remembered how Q had flipped out on Counselor Troi for being able to sense his emotions, and secondly, Q's voice was unchanged, still hoarse but no element of whatever emotion had just surged through him in it, and that meant that Q was prepared to keep it from being LaForge's problem. And if Q could keep it from being LaForge's problem, then it wasn't LaForge's problem, and he wasn't going to get into it. "I'd just like to go get started."

"Sure, go on."

He walked back to the station where Data was still working on the problem, communicating with the Bre'el III team. "Hey, Data. Two favors if you could?"

"I am always prepared to do favors for you, Geordi. What would you like?"

"First off, Q's going to my office to read up on transporters and replicators. He sounds and looks exhausted, but he's refusing to go to sleep, and some things he said made me think he's scared to do it. You might want to keep an eye on him and make sure he actually does get some sleep tonight."

"Certainly. What is the second favor?"

"We should be done pushing the moon around 0200 hours. Can you call me to wake me up when it's back into normal orbit? I'd really like to see that."

"If we restore it to normal orbit, it will still be in its proper orbit when morning comes and you are required to wake up. It should not be necessary to interfere with your sleep simply to see that the moon is in normal orbit."

"Trust me, Data, it won't be the same. I'll go back to bed right after... I just really want to see it. I don't think a starship has ever pushed a moon into orbit before."

"If you are certain that it will not disrupt your ability to be wakeful and concentrate in the morning, then I will endeavor to wake you when the push is complete."

"Thanks. You're a good pal, Data."

"You have always been a good pal to me as well, Geordi. Have a good rest."

LaForge grinned -- somehow the colloquialism of "good pal" sounded funnier coming from Data -- and headed off to bed.

* * *

When Data woke him up later, and he came into engineering to look at the readings, it was almost anticlimax. There were no singing choirs, no balloons and party favors... there wasn't even any visual sign that what they had done was impressive. A normal moon, in normal orbit. It took knowing _how_ the work had been done to make it impressive.

LaForge checked with the Science Council to let them know the work was finished, since Captain Picard was of course asleep, and to notify them that the _Enterprise_ would continue to hold position here to keep the moon in place for the next five days. He checked over Wesley's work briefly; although the boy had of course long since gone to bed, he'd done so after LaForge had, so there was some work there that LaForge hadn't seen yet. And then LaForge went into his office to check up on Q, figuring that if Q was still awake, maybe the good news about the moon might take off some of the tension he seemed to be suffering from that he could finally get some sleep.

But in fact, Q was slumped over LaForge's desk, head pillowed on folded arms. The PADD on the desk was displaying detailed replicator specifications. LaForge grinned, wondering how many documents Q had actually gotten through before passing out. There were six pizza bones on two plates on the desk, and a half-drunk cup of now-cold coffee.

His core temp was distinctly lower than the average awake human's, lower than it had been before. Wondering why he was bothering, since Q certainly wouldn't thank him for this, LaForge got a thin thermal blanket out of the replicator and draped it over Q in the chair, covering him up to his shoulders. He'd sleep better if he didn't get cold, and LaForge rationalized to himself that Q would be more manageable and more helpful if he actually got a good night's sleep. Not that he was likely to sleep all that well slumped over a console, but since he'd acted like a toddler who didn't want to take his nap earlier, LaForge didn't want to wake him to get him to move to a more comfortable sleeping place.

And speaking of a more comfortable sleeping place, LaForge's own bed was calling him. Morning and its duties would come soon enough. LaForge looked around at engineering a final time, making sure everything was running smoothly, before heading back to bed for the few hours left in the night.

* * *

Slowly Q became aware that his neck and back were in excruciating pain.

Carefully he lifted his head. This was a mistake. His eyes felt as if they might pop out of his skull from the pressure pounding inside his head, a pressure that pulsed as if it was his own heartbeat that was making his head crack open. His neck felt as if it had been stretched until it was ready to break, and his back wanted to fold up as if it were a book where the pages were his shoulderblades and his backbone was the spine of the book. Also, his mouth was so dry it felt like the back of his throat was cracking like the mud flats of a flood plain in the dry season, his arms ached, and his nose felt squashed.

He pushed back in the chair. Something behind him fell off his back. Startled, he turned��"too quickly, and his neck informed him of what a bad idea _that_ had been -- and saw a blanket on the floor.

A blanket? Who the hell had put a blanket on him, and why? Did all humans show such lack of consideration for others' privacy? Q got up, stumbling, unsteady on his feet. Someone had come in here while he was unconscious, helpless, completely unaware of their presence, and had not only looked at him in that helpless state but had actually _touched_ him. Whoever they were could have done anything to him, and he'd have been completely unaware and unable to stop them. The humiliation and terror -- that someone had seen him that way, that he had been so vulnerable in front of another being -- burned in him along with rage, at himself and at the mysterious person who'd put the blanket on him. He had lost time. He had only three days ��" less than that, now -- of existence left, and he had _wasted_ some of it in being insensate. And someone had come in here and dropped a blanket on him and hadn't even had the consideration to wake him up so he wouldn't _have_ to waste so much of the preciously little time he had left.

Crusher and LaForge had both been full of it, he thought angrily. He felt _much_ worse for his period of unconsciousness than he had last night. The only improvement he noted was that he no longer felt an overwhelming compulsion to close his eyes and sit still for unconsciousness to take him, and really, how circular was that? Humans wanted to sleep because it was uncomfortable to be falling asleep and trying to resist it. It didn't actually improve anything, it just took away the compulsion to sleep. It was more pointless than urination, and that was saying something. At least that, disgusting as it was, purged the body of poisonous wastes. What good did sleeping do at all?

He stormed out of LaForge's office. "Who's responsible for this?" he demanded, waving the blanket.

LaForge looked over at him. "You mean, who put a blanket on you when you were asleep? I did. You can thank me anytime, you know."

"_Thank_ you? For invading my privacy while I was completely helpless, and not even having the decency to wake me up so I could avoid this horrific state of unconsciousness or at _least_ perform it without my neck bent over at an unnatural angle for six hours?"

LaForge looked over at Wesley Crusher and Data. "This has to be a new record, even for him," LaForge said dryly. "You know, I said to myself that I didn't even know why I was bothering with the blanket, because he wouldn't appreciate it, but I didn't even _guess_ that he'd try to _blame_ me for it."

"Excuse me? I'm right here," Q said. "If you have something to say about me, why not say it to me directly?"

"Fine. You're an ingrate and a really lousy excuse for a human being. That direct enough for you?"

The words hit Q like a blow, because they were true, and he knew they were true. He was, in fact, a lousy excuse for a human being. He covered the feeling of despair and self-loathing the words triggered in him with an attack. "You'd make an even more pathetic excuse for a Q," he shot back.

"Yeah, well, I wouldn't _want_ to be a Q."

"Well, I wouldn't have wanted to be a human if I'd had a choice!"

"I had understood that you did in fact choose to be human," Data said. "When you first arrived on the _Enterprise_, you did say that it was by your own request that you had become human."

"Yeah, I did, but that's just like saying the condemned prisoner with a choice between hanging and burning really _wants_ to be hung. I picked what I thought would be the least of many possible evils, and it's caused me nothing but agony. And by the way, you're an idiot. You don't have to suffer pain and you don't have to sleep and you don't have to _stink_ if you don't wash yourself and yet you envy humans and wish you were one? How utterly moronic could you possibly get?"

LaForge scowled. "That's enough, Q. You're being a bigger pain in the butt than you were yesterday, and that's saying something. If you can't do anything constructive, go back to your quarters until you're calm enough to behave yourself."

"Go back to my _quarters?_ What good would that do? My back and neck have been contorted into some sort of Moebius strip monstrosity, my eyes feel like they're going to fall out of my head and go rolling around on the floor, a small party of Vulcan monks is building a temple in the back of my throat, with dynamite, and you think going to my quarters and being bored out of my mind will _improve_ my mood?"

"Fine. Go to sickbay, then."

"Where Ensign Boy Scout's mother can torment me and ignore my medical problems at her leisure? No thank you."

"My mom's not on until later in the shift," Crusher said. "If you go now, Dr. Selar's on duty."

Q blinked. Well. Under those circumstances, going to sickbay actually made sense. "Fine. Any opportunity to find what might possibly be a marginally competent doctor."

"You know, my mom is actually a really good doctor," Crusher said. "You don't get to be the chief medical officer on the flagship of the fleet by being incompetent. Just because she can't personally stand you doesn't make her a bad doctor."

Q remembered being transported to sickbay after the first Calamarain attack, his limbs so heavy he couldn't move them and the world swirling around him, gray spots in his vision and a roaring in his ears and feeling so cold, like the entire universe was falling away from him and leaving him alone in nothingness. He had been terrified beyond anything he'd ever experienced, worse even than the fear he'd felt in the brig when he'd fallen asleep... that one had actually not really been fear at all so much as resignation and despair, believing that his weakness and the exhaustion he was perceiving as life draining from his body might be killing him but being too tired to fight back against it. In sickbay after the Calamarain attack, though, he had more than enough emotional energy for terror, even though he didn't seem to have enough physical energy for making his body work properly. This time, the reactions of everyone around him told him that his fear was justified this time -- he _was_ dying. And Crusher had bent over him, running some kind of scan in what seemed to Q like an overly leisurely fashion, and he had begged her not to let him die, his eyes burning and then blurring with moisture that he'd later figured out were tears. Crusher had just looked at him like he was a bug on her shoe, given an exasperated sigh, and continued to do whatever she was doing without a single word to him, as if he were so far beneath her she couldn't even be bothered to give him reassurance.

He'd survived, so perhaps the wonder boy was right and his mother was in fact a competent doctor, but Q would almost rather die than tolerate anyone looking at him or treating him like that again. "You cling to your illusions, little boy," Q said, and stalked out of engineering.

By now, he knew the way to sickbay; he'd been beamed there the two times he'd actually needed medical attention, but both times he'd left under his own power, and later he'd returned to sickbay to talk to Data, after he'd made the decision to sacrifice himself the first time. He was rapidly developing a mental map of the _Enterprise_... not that it would much matter that he'd finally learned his way around the place, in a few days... no. Q dragged his mind away from that particular train of thought and concentrated on what he would tell the doctor.

Dr. Selar proved to be a Vulcan. Q did a doubletake for a moment; her resemblance to one of his closest friends' preferred female humanoid pattern was so strong, he thought for a moment that she had actually come to visit him in his exile... which would mean she might be amenable to helping him, and he might not have to die. Then he remembered her blocking his communications from the point where the Continuum had told him to take a hike, after the debacle with Riker, and her pointed refusal to look at him at his sentencing, letting herself be subsumed into the overmind with no individuality visible as if she didn't want to take any personal responsibility for his destruction. No. She wouldn't have come to see him, and she wouldn't have taken the form of a Vulcan if she had -- one thing they'd always been able to agree on was that Vulcans were incredibly boring. Hope died as quickly as it had arisen. Besides, the Vulcan didn't look _exactly_ like his friend's chosen pattern.

The rise and fall of the short-lived hope left him in an even fouler mood than before. "Are all Starfleet doctors total incompetents, or is it just Crusher?" he demanded as soon as she looked at him. "I'm in excruciating pain here. Are you going to do anything, or just stand there and stare at me?"

"What seems to be the problem?" Selar asked, completely unruffled. Even her voice reminded him of his friend's humanoid form, reminding him of precisely how abandoned and alone he was. To his horror, a burning pain that had become entirely too familiar pricked at his eyes. _Oh, no. I am __not__ going to cry in front of one of these mortals. This is ridiculous!_

"What _isn't_ the problem? Everything hurts."

"Sit on the diagnostic bed." She motioned him to the bed. Q sat down with bad grace as the Vulcan ran the medical tricorder over him.

"Well? What can you do about it?" he asked sharply.

"To treat your problems, it would be best if I knew what had caused them, and which ones are causing you the most difficulty. Have you done anything that might explain the muscle strain in your back and neck?"

"I fell asleep at a desk," Q muttered.

"Ah. That would explain it. What other symptoms are you experiencing?"

"My mouth and my eyes feel completely dehydrated, I have a terrible headache, and I'm in a truly foul mood."

"How many hours did you sleep last night?"

"I have no idea. I wasn't watching the chronometer. I just got up half an hour ago or so... it couldn't have been more than six hours. Maybe less."

"And did you consume stimulants yesterday?"

"Stimulants like what?" As annoyed as he was with the Wonder Boy and everyone else in engineering for letting him sleep in such a horrible position, he didn't want to sell Wesley out for getting him medications without a prescription. For one thing, if he did, he'd have no hope of getting the boy to give him anything else, and Q was determined that he wasn't going to falter again. He'd stay awake until he died, if it killed him.

"Coffee, for example. Or tea. Or raktajino."

"Yeah. Coffee and tea. Lots of it."

"Well, then I have a simple explanation for all of your symptoms." Selar closed up the tricorder. "Caffeine, which is present in coffee and tea as the stimulating ingredient, is a diuretic. You actually are dehydrated. The caffeine interfered with your ability to sleep properly, explaining why you stayed up late enough that you would fall asleep at your desk, which caused sufficiently poor sleep that you are exhausted and have strained your neck and back muscles. Caffeine also causes headaches... as does withdrawal from caffeine the morning after, as does dehydration, as does poor sleep. And your mood can easily be explained by the pain you're suffering and your poor sleep." She brought over an instrument. "I recommend water, or rehydrating solutions, with some breakfast, and then go back to sleep in an actual bed where you won't do yourself harm."

"What is that thing? What are you going to do?"

"This is a sonic relaxer. It will ease the tension in your muscles."

Q tensed further, sending shooting sparks of pain up through his spine. "Can't you just give me a painkiller?"

"I will, after relaxing your muscles. A painkiller will not solve the problem of tense muscles; it'll only treat the symptoms. There's no need to be so tense; this will not hurt."

He started to protest that what Crusher had done to fix his back had been excruciating, if brief, but then she turned the device on, and to his amazement it didn't hurt at all. He could feel the vibration in his flesh, and a sensation of warmth, as the horribly tight muscles loosened and the pain eased. In the sudden enforced relaxation, Q swayed, so used to bracing himself against pain that he almost fell over when it was gone.

"Well, that is a considerable improvement," he said. "When Crusher did this, whatever she did to fix the problem was almost worse than the disease."

"It is quite likely that Dr. Crusher had limited time. If I had only a minute to repair your back I would have to use a neural shocker to stun and then reset the muscles, which can be quite painful. But I believe the cure will be more effective if I take the eighteen minutes it will take to do this with the sonics."

"Mmm. Yes. I'm fully in agreement with that."

The process made him dizzy, and it was actually an effort to stay sitting up when the warm vibrations were melting his back into boneless goo. He wanted nothing more than to lie down on the diagnostic bed, let Selar continue to work on his back, and close his eyes.

"As I thought. The pain has been keeping you awake. You should have no difficulty getting back to sleep this morning; make sure you drink the water or rehydrating solution before you go to sleep, though, or you'll be more dehydrated when you awaken."

Q sat up straight, fear surging through him, ruining some of Selar's work. "I can't go to sleep!"

"Why not?"

"There are three moons on Bre'el III, and a colony of half a million people, and _those_ moons are about to destabilize and crash for the same reason Bre'el IV's satellite nearly did. I'm supposed to help with technical solutions. If I don't go back to Engineering and help out, they might not be able to stop those moons from crashing into the colony and killing all those people."

"And you're indispensable to the work?" Selar said dryly.

"Not indispensable, no. But sufficiently valuable that I don't want to take time to sleep. Isn't there anything you can do to help me with that? I mean, sleep's just a biological process. Can't you suppress it or something?"

"As a matter of fact, that is possible," Selar said. "We'll discuss the matter in a moment. I'm going to get you some rehydrating solution."

"That doesn't sound very tasty."

"My understanding is that humans actually find it quite pleasant to drink when they are extremely thirsty. You can have grape flavor, lemon flavor, or mint. Which do you prefer?"

Q had no idea, so he picked the first thing she'd said. "Uh, grape, whatever."

When she came back with the drink, Q took a sip, and then proceeded to gulp the whole thing down as fast as he could. It was delicious, or at least his throat thought so, and he wasn't entirely sure his tongue was in any shape to have an opinion other than that it was wet and therefore good.

"Before we proceed with any sort of treatment," Selar said, "I would like to clarify your motives."

"My... what?"

"You claim that you must stay awake in order to save lives. That would be a noble ambition, if it were true, but your past history makes this a dubious claim at best." She fixed him with an eagle-like gaze, as if he were prey. It made him uncomfortable, and he shifted on the bed. "When you first appeared on the _Enterprise_, you froze Lt. Torres for pointing a gun at you, although the gun was set to 'stun' and, as we now know, you had many other alternatives available for your defense, such as dematerializing the gun, always assuming you might have been vulnerable to phaser fire at all, which seems unlikely. You also froze Lt. Yar, although you undid that on your own at Counselor Troi's request. And you created constructs that appeared to Counselor Troi, a trained empath, as if they were fully sentient, and allowed them to kill each other. When next you came to the _Enterprise_, you threatened Lt. Yar's life again, and also allowed constructs to fatally injure Ensign Crusher and Lt. Worf. Finally, in your last visit here you caused the death of 18 members of the crew."

Q squirmed slightly. "You have an admirably complete grasp of the facts for someone who wasn't there to see any of this," he said, embarrassed.

"I have actually been aboard the ship for all of these incidents, although you're correct that I wasn't present at any of them. Moreover, I've reviewed your case since you came aboard."

"Does any of this have a point, aside from humiliating me?"

"Only this. Why would an entity who was so cavalier about committing murder or grievous bodily harm, or allowing such to occur due to events he'd orchestrated, now care so much about the lives of innocent strangers?"

Now Q saw where this was going. Selar wanted her pound of flesh; if he wasn't forthcoming with the mea culpas, she would deny him the treatment he really wanted. Perhaps this was better than Crusher, who wouldn't have given him a chance to argue for what he wanted at all, but he really wasn't appreciating this. "To start with, the only people who died or could possibly have died were the 18 who fell to the Borg. I was well aware that your medical technology could unfreeze that one guy without harming him, and I was well aware that Riker would use the powers I'd given him to save Worf and Crusher. And my constructs might be able to fool Troi, but they're no more self-aware than holodeck programs, so if you're going to blame me for letting them kill each other, you'll have to blame everyone who runs a wargame or a film noir program."

"That doesn't explain why you allowed 18 people to die to prove a point, and yet now you claim to be deeply concerned for innocent lives."

Part of him wanted to storm out of here. Why should he have to bare his soul to a total stranger just so he could get medical treatment, and avoid having to sleep? It didn't say much for the doctor's concern for the millions of innocent lives if she was going to hold his ability to work on their behalf hostage, did it? On the other hand, he really, really, _really_ didn't want to fall asleep. And if Selar could help him avoid that without the side effects he'd suffered from with the coffee and stimulants yesterday, he would do almost anything. So he looked away from her with a wry, slightly embarrassed smile. "I suppose it's a fair question," he murmured.

"I'm glad that you agree."

He looked up at her. "Is it a crime to harm animals, Doctor? If a herd of cows was in danger of being killed by a rampaging wolf, would you actually care, or would you consider it none of your business?"

"I do not work in animal husbandry. But if it was my fault that the wolf was threatening the cows, I would certainly attempt to resolve the situation without harm to the cows."

"Well, you're a Vulcan. What do you think the average Federation citizen would do?"

"The analogy isn't accurate. You caused the threat to the _Enterprise_ by attempting to join the crew. Sentient beings do not attempt to join groups of non-sentients."

This was sounding suspiciously like a conversation he'd had with Picard yesterday about fish. "The point is that it's _different_ now. I would never have been cavalier about the destruction of a Q, or any other entity similar to us. Not that there's much that can harm us. But if there _were_... if it had been possible for a situation to occur in which, oh, say, five or six Douwds were facing death from some sort of spatial anomaly and their own people either wouldn't or couldn't respond to the crisis, I would have been perfectly willing to lend them aid if they asked." He shook his head. "The inconsistency isn't in my moral beliefs, it's in my nature. _What_ I am, rather than who. Beings that are like me are worthy of my concern for their well-being; beings that are considerably less than what I am are not. And I am, now, vastly less than I was.

"The death of five hundred thousand mortal beings means absolutely nothing to a Q unless we've taken a personal interest in those beings, or at least one of them, and it must be that way because if we cared, if we ran around restoring moons to their proper orbit and preventing supernovae and stopping natural disasters, we would be the gods of the universe. Every mortal species would be our client and we their patrons, and there's a reason 'patron' is the root of patronize. None of you would learn or grow or evolve. Just as you have your Prime Directive preventing you from intervening in cultures that aren't yet aware that there's life on other worlds, we have our own laws, and among them is the principle that we interfere only selectively, that we don't make other species dependent on us. So I _couldn't_ care about five hundred thousand mortals that I didn't personally know or have an interest in; over the course of billions of years, if you don't cultivate callousness toward the beings that are constantly dying, you'll be destroyed.

"Things are different now. Those five hundred thousand beings are fundamentally no different than I am now. Most of them will outlive me, at least if we can prevent their moons from destroying them. None of them are in any danger of becoming dependent on me. Their minds, their capacities for thought and emotion and self-awareness, their understanding of what awaits in their future... none of that is any different from what I have, now. They're _like_ me, the way other beings of power used to be like me."

"I see. Becoming human has allowed you to empathize with the plight of humanoids?"

"I doubt I'd ever _actually_ go out on charity missions to feed the starving children on the collapsing Cardassian colonies, but yes. I do feel... sorry for the people down there. I mean, it's not like it's anything they did to make their moons' orbits collapse; even your technology can't control a black hole. And if I can use the tiny fraction of life I have remaining to me to save them... well, it beats sitting around being bored and obsessing over my death."

"Interesting. You consider your own lifespan a tiny fraction of life, yet other mortal beings with, essentially, the same lifespan as you, have lives worth being concerned about?"

Too late he remembered that Selar didn't know about the sentence of death he was under. Not that he wanted her to know; he despised pity, and was trying to keep the information from as many people as he could. He'd told Wesley Crusher because he'd thought that a _little_ pity from the wunderkind might help get him some assistance in staying awake, and Picard because... well, because Troi had sold him out. Selar didn't need to know any more than LaForge and Data did. But that did make his choice of words seem bizarre, to say the least. He came up with something plausible to cover it. "They don't know what they're missing. Compared to the lifespan I expected, yes, any mortal lifespan's barely an eyeblink. Whereas they've always lived on the scale they live on now, so yes, I have a fraction of my life remaining and they don't. I mean, mathematically, 80 years or so is a much, much tinier sliver of five billion than it is of 120, don't you agree?"

"True." Selar picked up her tricorder again and ran it over him. "There are three options that I see. The first, obviously, is that you sleep. I suspect a nap of 90 minutes would not significantly detract from the available time you have to work; however, I can see why you would rather not take the chance. The second is stimulant medication, but given the symptoms you are exhibiting today, I don't see that as the best option. The alternative I would suggest is that we treat you with medication that will bind to the fatigue toxins and the neurotransmitters in your brain that would ordinarily be flushed out by sleep, and at the same time block the receptors for those transmitters. The effect on your level of alertness and mood will be as if you had had a full night's sleep."

"That sounds marvelous. What's the catch?"

"For a single usage, there is no 'catch', as you put it. It will put a mild strain on your kidneys, as the binder that carries the toxins will carry them out through your renal system. Be sure to drink frequently, or you'll end up dehydrated again. You may also experience a dry mouth. Over the long term, if you attempted to do this on a regular basis as a substitute for sleep, your memory would become impaired, you'd run the risk of developing diabetes or other metabolic disorders, and you would be very likely to develop painful kidney stones."

"I'm not going to be doing this long term, trust me." _Because I'll be entirely too dead to worry about sleep._ He pushed that thought away.

"Very well." She injected him with two separate hypos. "You should feel better shortly. I strongly recommend having breakfast; lack of blood sugar will not interact well with these medications."

"Humans have sugar in their blood?" Q said, startled.

"Glucose. Simple carbohydrate. C-6-H-12-O-6."

"Oh. Oh, right, that stuff. Oh, hey, yeah, the table sugar stuff they like to eat is two of the glucose put together! Or technically, a glucose and one of its isomers, but same thing. You know, I never actually thought about that... I mean, I knew humans can get obsessive over sugar, and I knew their bodies run on glucose, but I never actually thought about the fact that of course those things are _related._"

"Yes, it's surprising how often the bodies of living beings affect the minds and desires of those beings in ways that turn out to be extremely logical. Although I could wish that human evolution had provided them with more accurate feedback and control mechanisms, as Vulcans have. A significant number of my patients have difficulty with the fact that their desire to eat sugar, or fats, or salt -- all valuable chemicals to the human body, in moderation -- won't turn _off_ when they've actually satisfied their body's need for the substances." She gestured at him to stand up. "I also advise you to go to your room and bathe."

"I put on lots of those odor suppressor thingies," Q objected.

"Yes, and that is why you smell like odor suppressors. You only need one in each region that concentrates sweat, but you should shower every day and change your clothes as frequently." She inspected his hair. "And don't put odor suppressors in your hair. It isn't necessary and it will damage your hair."

"And make it tangled and hideous, don't forget," Q mumbled. He'd almost forgotten about this particular nuisance of being human. "Look, I don't know how to use any of the equipment. I tried washing myself yesterday and all I did was burn my skin off with chlorine solution. I realize you're all so used to this stuff that there's hardly likely to be a manual for its use, but--" She handed him a PADD. "What's this?"

"The manual," Selar said dryly. "While adult humanoids of species that must bathe frequently are usually more aware of the necessity than you are, they are no more likely to know how to use the equipment on a Galaxy-class starship than you, if they are not from Earth or Starfleet. Review this, particularly the section for human sanitary equipment for males. Once you have eaten, bathed and changed, you should be alert and comfortable enough to return to engineering without distressing anyone."

"Distressing anyone?"

"Commander LaForge commed me to tell me you were on your way, and why. I would also suggest, in future, that you do not call Data an idiot. Quite aside from the fact that he saved your life, almost at the expense of his own, everyone in engineering is very protective of Data."

"You know, I see your point about the life saving and all that, but honestly that doesn't make any sense. Data doesn't have emotions. He's not going to get offended if I call him an idiot, so why does everyone care?"

"Perhaps everyone cares precisely because Data cannot be offended on his own behalf. I confess I don't fully understand the logic myself, but I have observed it to be a fact. When Dr. Pulaski was replacing Dr. Crusher, she inadvertently caused some ill will with the engineers at first with her mistrust of Data."

"I trust Data completely, but if he's being an idiot I'm going to tell him so."

"Perhaps you might wish to explore the difference between your opinion and objective fact before telling anyone that they are an idiot."

As far as Q was concerned, there _was_ no difference between his opinion and objective facts, but he wasn't going to waste more of his precious time arguing with the Vulcan. "Fine, doctor. Can I go now?"

"Yes." She motioned at the door, and then turned away from him to go back to a desk, since there didn't appear to be any patients who needed her attention in Sickbay at the moment.


	4. Working In Groups

By now he'd learned what the pangs in his stomach meant, so the first order of business was to get something to eat. There was a replicator in his quarters, and by now he'd had enough different foods that he could find himself something to eat without having to ask a human what to get. He ordered chocolate cake, salami and cream cheese rolls, and tried to get the things from the conference that had looked like micro-bushes but couldn't remember their names -- something with rock in it? It didn't matter all that much, he supposed -- the important thing was to eat something, quickly, so he could get cleaned off and get back to work.

Getting clean worked much, much better with an actual reference material to explain to him how everything worked. He didn't stink anymore _or_ smell of odor suppressors, his hair looked half-decent, and best of all there was no longer disgusting hair sticking out of his face every which way making him look like a drunken hobo. Really, why couldn't humans have evolved to fully overcome the monkey heritage and get rid of all that stuff? Maybe he should have been a woman. Human women didn't have hairs sticking out of their face. He seemed to recall that they oozed blood on a regular basis as part of their reproductive cycle, which was even more disgusting than facial hair, but since he was going to die within a couple of days and the blood oozing thing happened monthly or so, it probably would have worked out better for him. They also had nicer looking clothes... although, now that Q had some experience actually putting real feet, that could get tired and feel pain, into real shoes, he was starting to think that perhaps the boots most women in Starfleet seemed to wear looked even less comfortable than the horrible things he had to wear. He would have liked to linger over his wardrobe and find something interesting to wear -- if he wasn't allowed to wear a uniform there wasn't much point to wearing the same clothes every day -- but he didn't have time, so he just replicated the exact same thing he had yesterday and headed back to Engineering.

"So how are we doing?" he asked as he walked in the door. "Any moons crash yet?"

"No, but they have begun to destabilize," Data said.

"Are you feeling better now?" LaForge asked. "Ready to actually get some work done without taking people's heads off?"

"Vastly," Q said. "And yes, or I wouldn't be here. It's actually quite terrifying how dependent you humans' mental state is on something as trivial as whether or not you've eaten or if your neck hurts."

"I guess when you think about it, it is a little frightening," LaForge said. "But it isn't really that hard once you get used to it. Just make sure you get enough food and sleep and don't fall asleep at your desk, and you'll be fine. It'll probably be only a couple of weeks until you get it together, and after that you should be ok."

_Except for the part about being dead, I suppose._ "So what's our situation?"

"Well, the Ferengi got here a couple of hours ago, and apparently the Kaeloids are on their way with a small fleet. Word is they might be able to evacuate as many as 20,000 people. The two Ferengi vessels aren't large enough to ferry any people, so we've got them in place to help us with keeping the moon in place; they haven't got the mass or the power of the _Enterprise_, but there's two of them, so we worked out where they need to sit for maximum leverage and that takes the strain off our engines." LaForge pulled something up on his console and looked at it. "Yeah, that's what I thought. Okay. Bre'el III reports success in manufacturing antimatter, and they already had mega-replicators, so they're hooking the mega-replicators up with the new antimatter supply and beaming matter in from the un-terraformed zones to make transport pods. They estimate they can produce transport pods enough for maybe a thousand people in an hour."

"That's not going to be enough. We don't have five hundred hours before those moons crash."

"No, that's true, and the Kaeloids may be able to ferry twenty thousand people across the system in half an hour, but it's probably going to take an hour or so to load and disembark people, so we're looking at being able to evacuate maybe an average of ten thousand people an hour with their help. And the problem there is that the space station at Bre'el VII can only support maybe a maximum of eighty thousand people, tops. So eight hours after the Kaeloids start ferrying people, we're back to being limited to the speed of the mega-replicators."

"More antimatter won't help?"

"More antimatter's made it possible to do at all, but no, adding more antimatter won't make the mega-replicators work faster, because they've only got so many mega-replicators. Bre'el IV's got more, and they're working on it as well, but probably about half their capacity's going to evacuate their own people out of the fault zones and tidal areas."

"That's stupid. They should just beam the people to the stable areas, not evacuate them off the _planet_. Save the transport pods for the Bre'el III folks."

"They're... not being entirely rational about it, Q. The Science Council is doing what it can, but people are panicking down there. I think they're doing pretty well for being able to think about Bre'el III's problems at _all._"

Q shook his head. "Obviously they haven't got an Eirhean. But that shouldn't surprise me. Awfully few worlds do."

"Eirhean?"

"A scientist I knew on the planet Semora. They were pre-warp, actually pre-space flight entirely... hadn't even split the atom yet, though Eirhean was working on it. And then their telescopes observed an incoming asteroid that was going to annihilate the planet in five years. They all went crazy, for a while at least... except for Eirhean, who came very close to single-handedly inventing space flight and nuclear missiles all by herself so she could stop the asteroid."

"Very close?" Wesley Crusher drifted in to the group, apparently attracted by the story. "Did she manage to stop the asteroid, or not?"

"She _would_ have succeeded, except that the people who actually went to implement her plan screwed things up, and only managed to blow up a small segment of the asteroid. And themselves. And when she tried to persuade the world's governments to try again, they'd all basically given up in despair and refused to field another mission, in the belief that it was obviously hopeless. Which it kind of was. They'd missed their window to divert the asteroid; even if they sent up more nukes, the best they'd be able to manage would be to break the asteroid up so only two-thirds of its mass would impact Semora, and not all in the same place. Maybe 70% of all life on their planet would die instead of 95%." Q shook his head again. "You'd think that any sensible mortal would recognize when they were beaten and just give up and die already, but I suppose the threat to her world drove her insane too, just in a more constructive way than it did most of them. Really, if she'd cared as much about her children as she said she did, she probably should have spent what by all rights ought to have been their last few years of life with them instead of practically abandoning them in a futile quest to research a way to save them, but she was positively obsessed with it. I don't think she'd ever encountered a problem she couldn't solve with her mind before. I tried to persuade her that her priorities were misguided, and she should spend her remaining time with her children... well, you've never heard such language from a scientist before. You'd have thought she was an uneducated dockworker, or a sailor on the crudest of grubby old scows."

"Did she stop the asteroid or not?" Crusher asked.

"You weren't listening, were you, Crusherling? No. Her best efforts were ruined by the failure of other people. Although she didn't actually give up until the day the asteroid was scheduled to hit the planet." He motioned at LaForge's console. "See, these people down there have advanced science, warp travel, an entire Federation of technologically advanced pals to help them out, and they're _still_ panicking. Eirhean would have known what to do with resources like you guys."

"Did she die?" Crusher asked. He showed every sign of being emotionally involved with the story, despite the fact that it had happened over twenty thousand years ago in the Beta Quadrant and he had no chance of ever encountering any of the people involved. How ridiculous.

"Of course she died. She was mortal. This happened twenty thousand years ago, what do you expect?"

"I mean did she die when the asteroid hit?"

Gently LaForge said to Crusher, "Q just said 95% of the planet's life was wiped out. I think if she didn't die when the asteroid hit, she'd probably have died shortly afterward."

"And you just stood there and let it happen?" Crusher demanded of Q. "Even though you _knew_ her? You had conversations with her, but you still let her die, even though you could have just snapped your fingers and saved her planet?"

"It's funny, that's exactly the argument she made."

"We have been in a similar situation ourselves," Data said. "The Prime Directive binds us in situations where a pre-warp culture is endangered, as well. Recall our situation on Drema IV?"

"Yeah, and I also remember that when Captain Picard heard that little girl calling you on her transmitter, he changed his mind and decided that we had to intervene to save the planet."

"That never works out well," Q muttered.

"It works out better than if you let them all _die._"

"No, it doesn't." Q glared down at the boy. "You decide to make an exception this time, you feel inexplicably moved by the plight of a bunch of pre-warp primitives helplessly facing an impending doom, you know all the reasons you shouldn't intervene but just this once, _just this once_ you decide to break the rules, because someone on that planet is too interesting to let die. So you turn the asteroid into water before it hits the planet, and mist it into the atmosphere, and it rains for weeks but no one dies. And they call it a _miracle_, and the brilliant, dedicated scientist you respected even though you thought she was half-crazed with her obsessive need to save her planet and her kids... she loses her mind, declares you a god, and founds a religion dedicated to worshipping you, and fifty years later the primitives are _killing_ each other over things they're pretending you said to them and announcing to all and sundry that _you_ told them to do that."

LaForge looked taken aback. "Is that what happened to that planet? The one you were just talking about?"

"Yes. They all lived, because I _didn't_ stand there and watch them die, as Crusher there thinks I did. No, instead they survived to kill and torture each other and declare that they were carrying out my will. The person I thought was too interesting to allow her to die lost everything that made her worthy of my attention, and became nothing but another pathetic inferior creature trying to wheedle favors out of a god. And that is _exactly_ why I should have let them all die instead. At least they've have had some dignity when they went, and at least it wouldn't have been something they did to each other to curry favor with an entity who really could have done without _any_ of it." He stalked over to the console, glaring down at it as if the information on it meant anything to him, which it really didn't. "So. Now that we're done wasting time rehashing a pointless anecdote about the past, can we get back to work?"

"Q, if you did not wish to 'waste time rehashing a pointless anecdote about the past', why then did you bring the subject up, and proceed to tell the entire story?" Data asked, head cocked quizzically.

"Data, just drop it, okay?" LaForge said. "Q is right, we need to get to work. Here's the thing... there's no way we can get all the people evacuated off Bre'el III before their moons crash. The math just doesn't work. But destroying the moons is a _really_ radical solution. There's no way to know what that'll do to the tides or the terraforming project, long-run. We don't even know for sure that their air scrubbers can handle that volume of dust. So what I need is _any_ other alternative we can come up with. Could the Kaeloids do to Bre'el III's moons what we're doing for Bre'el IV? Is there any way we can set up a transport relay station to beam people between Bre'el III and Bre'el IV? Would the artificial wormhole idea work if instead of having to go across the solar system, it only had to transit between III and IV? Let's get some ideas. Captain Picard wants to see us at 1000 hours, so we've got about two and a half hours to come up with some solutions."

Half an hour later, sitting around the only conference table in Engineering, they weren't any closer to a better solution than before.

The Kaeloids' Fleet Engineer was willing to talk to LaForge about their capabilities in general, and it turned out that they didn't have the precise control over their warp bubble that the _Enterprise_ did, so it wasn't possible for them to do what the _Enterprise_ was doing. This was a shame, because that had been the most feasible of their ideas. The others had even more serious technical problems. In Q's opinion, based on the work he and Crusher had done yesterday, the artificial wormhole just wouldn't work. Space had warped so much around here in response to the black hole's transit that there was no way to make an artificial wormhole stable enough to support beaming sentient beings through, if either the start or the end point were in the Bre'el system and most especially if both points were. He actually considered their likelihood of getting a stable wormhole together better if they were going to connect Bre'el III to, say, Alpha Centauri, where space was much thicker, but that didn't appear to be politically feasible, and besides, he didn't really think they could pull that one off either. Without a wormhole, the distance between Bre'el III and IV was enough that transporting between the two worlds would involve at least three relay stations, and attenuation of signal was known to drop from 99.9999% accuracy in a single transport to 98% with one relay station, 95% with two, and 88% with three. Losing 12% of the signal was simply unacceptable when transporting sentient beings.

Of course, the limitations of the transporter seemed very, very odd to Q. "Look, your replicators store matter as digitized patterns, right? The same as the transporter? And you don't have to worry about the distance to Earth when you want to beam yourself out an ice cream sundae that was first manufactured there; you carry the pattern around with you. You could store five hundred thousand different items in your replicator stores, and it doesn't take up enough space to crowd out the people on the ship. So why can't you just _store_ all the people in the transporter and then carry them over to Bre'el IV?"

"The transporter doesn't work that way, Q," LaForge said in that overly patient voice that was really beginning to grate on Q.

"Yes, I'm _aware_ of that. It also doesn't make antimatter. Except when it does, apparently. So rather than telling me _that_ it doesn't do something it seems as if it should be eminently capable of doing, how about telling me why, and maybe we can figure out a way around it?"

"Well, it's the precision required. Food items don't need 99.9999% accuracy... in fact that number's kind of misleading, because what actually happens with a transport is that statistically, 99.9999% of all transports recover 100% of the signal. Transporter accidents are one in a million, and it's because the beam is massively redundant; a transporter beam's holographic in that any individual ray of the beam contains the entire pattern, though obviously not at full resolution. And it can do that because it's a dynamic energy beam, so some of the data is actually stored _as_ dynamism. If we tried to make it static, it would take something like ten times the disk space--"

"Didn't you say the same thing about the antimatter?"

"Yeah, but the difference is, one gram of antimatter has enough kilojoules to power an entire mega-replicator through making several hundred transport pods. So if it takes you a huge amount of disk space to store and extrapolate that one gram... hey, it's just one gram. It didn't take a lot of space in the first place. But a sentient being takes up a lot more space. See, we store food items at something like 95% accuracy... that would kill a living being, which is why you can't replicate _gagh_ that Klingons will actually eat, because it comes out dead. We have different replicator protocols for storing, say, seeds, which are technically alive but are mostly nothing but DNA information, but even that wouldn't work on a living being. To get the pattern stored well enough that you don't risk killing the person... put it this way. All of the _Enterprise's_ disk space could probably store about ten people, tops."

"So use the mega-replicators to make transport pods that, instead of being able to transport a thousand actual people, are 90% disk space. The _Enterprise_ computers take up less than 1% of the total mass of the ship, I'm sure. Make the transport pod into almost entirely storage, so it can store more than 1,000 people... if you can build a transport pod that can store 10,000 people as patterns, you only need fifty of them to evacuate the entire planet, and you can keep them in storage until the moons crash and the dust settles and it's safe for them to return."

"I believe that transporter beams have actually been engineered to make it very difficult to do this," Data said.

Q frowned. "Why would you people have done _that?_"

"There's an ethical problem with what you're suggesting," LaForge said. "If we had the technology to store people the way we store things in the replicator... well, if you make ten chocolate sundaes, the chocolate sundaes aren't going to have to worry about which one of them is the original and who has the rights of the original being. Transporters work the way they do because the density of the information in the beam can almost support continued consciousness; in fact some people report that they are aware of being transported. So it's not actually like you're killing someone at one end by disintegrating them, and then recreating them at the other end; it's the same being, just converted to energy."

"Yes, I understand that concept. Believe me, the conversion of sentient beings from matter to energy and back again is an area I'm intimately familiar with."

"So if you just stored the pattern, and read it back out... where's the continuity of being? It's obviously not the same person anymore. In fact what's to stop you from reading the pattern and then never breaking the person down, so you can have the original and then a digital copy in the storage unit that you can make infinite copies of?"

"Why would that be a problem?"

LaForge sighed in exasperation. "Data?"

"All Federation law -- in fact most advanced systems of law, possessed by sentient beings with warp technology -- bases property and status rights and responsibilities on the individual. I could, in theory, be recreated by a replicator, as I am not made of organic matter and most of my substances are actually less complex than organic molecules. Should I create an identical copy of myself and then download a backup of my mind into the copy, so that he were to become mentally as well as physically another Data... that being would not be the second officer of the _Enterprise_. He would probably not even be considered a Starfleet officer, although it is likely that he would be granted a commission if he wished given that he would have the memories of attending the Academy and all of my experience. My possessions would not belong to him. Should he enter into a romantic relationship with a human and marry them, his spouse would not be my spouse. Should I successfully build an entirely new Soong-type android to be my offspring, he would not be that android's father. Legally, he would not be me. However, with a full complement of my memories, he would believe himself to be me, and this would create difficulties for him, as all of the rights and responsibilities I take for granted would also be things he would take for granted, but as they would not actually belong to him, that might cause him some distress. Also, it would be even more difficult to distinguish him from me than it is to distinguish my actual brother Lore from me. Should he commit a crime, would I be punished? The conundrums that the creation of an identical copy of a sentient being would cause are sufficiently problematic that I believe the decision was made, centuries ago, that the transporter beam should be engineered in such a way that it would be partially dependent on dynamism to store its information, and thus almost impossible to store and copy."

"But it is possible," Q said. "I know for a fact that your transporter beam has been known to accidentally create identical copies of people."

"I am not aware of any such cases," Data said. "I am aware of cases where the transporter beam has physically duplicated an individual, but without a full complement of mental traits of the original."

"No, trust me. I've seen it make exact, literally exact, copies of sentient beings." A sudden wild hope occurred to him, but he checked it for now. It didn't pertain to the problem in front of them, and he wanted a chance to do some research to see if their technology could even pull it off... but he might possibly have just figured out how he was going to survive this. "See, in the Continuum we don't have this problem. Two copies of the same individual are the same individual. There's no distinction."

"So... if there was another you running around you'd share everything you have with that person?" Crusher asked skeptically.

"Why not? Anything we have would belong equally to both of us. Not that the Q have possessions per se, but we do have territories, and since an identical copy of me is me, I'd know that I wouldn't do anything with the things in my territory that I would disapprove of, so why wouldn't I let myself use anything I claim as mine?"

LaForge shook his head. "That's... weirder than I want to get for this discussion. Just take it as a given that mortals don't like the idea of duplicates of themselves running around. So it's not feasible to turn people into patterns in a transporter buffer and carry them over to the planet. Although..." He frowned, lost in thought. "You know, if we're thinking about transporting people directly to Bre'el IV... why aren't we thinking about having the Kaeloids ferry people to Bre'el IV? Now that we've got the moon in a stable position, everywhere but the fault and tidal zones should be perfectly safe. The Kaeloids could get between Bre'el III and IV a _lot_ faster than they could get across the entire system... we might be looking at being able to evacuate all five hundred thousand in twenty-five hours or so. I think that's actually within the time window we have before the moons crash."

"I believe you are right, Geordi. If the Science Council considers that an acceptable solution, and the Kaeloids are willing to perform such rapid ferry service, that seems as if it may be the best solution to the problem."

"All right." LaForge stood up. "I'll let Captain Picard know we've got some ideas, and we'll be meeting with him in two hours. We can get a little break for a while. Wes, how long are you scheduled for?"

"I rearranged my schedule, Commander. I was supposed to work on the bridge from 1200 to 2000 hours today, but I asked Commander Riker if I could be scheduled for 0600 -- 1400 hours in Engineering instead, because it seemed yesterday like you might still need me down here."

"You were working until almost midnight last night, though. That's not a lot of sleep. You sure you're okay?"

"Sure thing, Commander. I'll just go to bed early tonight to catch myself up."

LaForge grinned indulgently. "Boy, sometimes I wish I was as young as you again. Must be nice to be able to get by without any sleep for a night or two and still feel fine." Q smirked, suspecting that Crusher's energy and wakefulness was best explained by some reason other than his youth. "Lieutenant Cho will be in charge while Data and I are at the meeting, but you're the one with the most knowledge of what's going on with the Bre'el operations, so you hold down the fort for me later, okay?"

"Sure thing," Crusher said, repeating himself, which Q found irritating. "I'll give her any information she needs."

"Q, you'll be at the meeting too. I won't need you before then, so you can go do whatever."

"Can I do more research? There's something I'd like to look into."

"Yeah, sure. Go ahead and use my office."

* * *

By the time of the meeting, Q was feeling actually hopeful for once. He'd known theoretically that it would be possible to do what he was hoping their technology could do, because he knew it could do it by accident. The research he'd done seemed to indicate that in fact it would be possible, and he could even see how to do it, vaguely, although to actually pull it off he'd need help from the people who worked with this kind of technology every day. It would not be the best possible solution to the problem facing him, but then, the _best_ possible solution was that the Continuum reconsider their punishment and give him his powers back, and that wasn't about to happen. Since what he was thinking of was a solution that would leave him alive at the end, he was eager to embrace it, flaws and all.

So he was in fairly good spirits when they went to the meeting. If they could just get this immediate crisis out of the way and have a solid plan for dealing with the Bre'el III moons, he could probably get Data to help him make the modifications he wanted to make to the transporter. And then... and then he could actually live through this.

He was somewhat surprised at the strength of his own desire to live. When he'd decided to give himself up to the Calamarain the first time, in the shuttlecraft -- was that really only yesterday morning? Time went by so _slowly_ on a mortal timescale -- he had been resigned, numb, and hating himself and his new life so much that death was almost appealing. He had been sick with fear, jumping at shadows, and certain everyone was laughing at his incompetence and his cowardice. The sheer magnitude of everything he'd have to learn and how distasteful it all was and the change in his status from ancient, all-powerful, vastly knowledgeable being to a helpless, useless, pathetic waste of space who knew nothing of value... it had overwhelmed him, and he hadn't been able to imagine ever overcoming any of it. And everyone had hated him, and it had _hurt_. Q was used to being hated -- it was generally the reaction he was going for when he dealt with mortals. He wasn't used to it hurting. He'd always thought himself a law unto himself, wholly independent, needing no one; the loss of the Continuum and his emotional connection to his fellow Q was like the loss of water to a fish, something he had never fully realized was even _there_ until it was gone. No one wanted him anymore, no one needed him, he belonged to no one and nothing, and he had discovered he couldn't bear that. It was entirely true that sooner or later the Calamarain would destroy the ship to get to him, but he hadn't allowed himself to articulate that fact to himself until Data had almost died for him, and he had realized how much he despised himself right now and how very alone and worthless he felt.

It had been easy, then, to give himself up to death. It would be fast, relatively speaking -- oh, the Calamarain would make him suffer, he was sure, but objectively his death would probably be over in a few minutes, and then he wouldn't have to feel this loss and misery anymore. It had seemed like a perfect solution -- save the _Enterprise_ crew, who didn't deserve to be destroyed for actually giving him the sanctuary he'd asked for, and escape the pain of this existence, escape his own feelings of inadequacy and self-hatred. When Picard had had him rescued, he'd been genuinely enraged at the man for taking his death away from him. And then Picard had offered him a chance to prove himself, a chance to belong, to try again to fit in and be useful and actually make a place for himself here.

Q found it difficult to believe how much of a difference that made, as if his entire existence was predicated on connections to other people. It was entirely the opposite from how he'd thought of himself his whole life, but on consideration he supposed it made sense... the Q were a unity, a Continuum, never alone and never truly separated. As much as he'd wanted them to leave him alone, he'd never wanted them to leave him _completely_ alone, not like this. Without them, without _anyone_, he'd wanted to die... but as soon as he felt he might be able to belong after all, as soon as people showed signs of valuing what he could do, he had begun to desperately want to live again. And then he'd had to agree to surrender himself to the Calamarain, because it turned out it was still the only way to save everyone else. The logic he'd finally allowed himself to see when he was in suicidal despair was still there, still inescapable, even now that he no longer wanted to die. His wants and desires could contribute to whether or not he lived in denial of the facts, but they could no longer _change_ those facts... and if he wanted to belong to a group, he couldn't let himself deny a deadly threat to them, even if it would also let him refuse to acknowledge his own inevitable fate.

He'd been trying to convince himself into feeling suicidal again. He was still human, still fairly helpless, still at the mercy of all sorts of disgusting needs and urges, and still horribly ignorant of most of them. Pain still hurt and was still entirely too frequent. He still made humiliating mistakes and was mocked by the humans for them. He should have been able to convince himself that all these things were good reasons to want to die. But it wasn't working. As much as he didn't _want_ to find it so, food tasted good. Solving problems, using his intellect to learn new things and then applying his experience to those things to accomplish tasks, was... fun. Actually working with others, when his ideas weren't ignored and weren't useless and they were able to take the concepts he introduced to them and build on them... that felt oddly good. For that matter, the feeling that he could actually _help_ people, directly, in a way that he could get credit for, without running the risk that they'd start worshipping him for it... that was new, and surprisingly pleasant.

There were still things to enjoy about life, pleasures to be had even in this reduced state. He wanted to live, to continue to experience what life had to offer, and the fact that he'd condemned himself to death was getting harder and harder to bear as his time came closer to running out. He was trying not to think about it, but it kept coming back at odd moments, the sudden realization that he would die in... two days, now, resurfacing and hitting him randomly, triggered by innocuous comments other people made, or sometimes by nothing at all. So if his plan could work... he clung to that hope. Of course it would work. These people, particularly the Engineering crew, could do absolutely anything that was technologically possible with their own equipment, once the idea had been put in their head, and this was definitely possible, since it had happened before. It wouldn't be the best solution but it was better than what he had now.

* * *

This time he showed up to the meeting on time, since he went with LaForge and Data.

First, LaForge presented the problem. The complex orbits of the Bre'el III satellites made it difficult to design a plan that would allow any ships to push them back into orbit as they were doing to Bre'el IV's moon, and even if they had a good plan, the Kaeloids' technology couldn't do it. Moving people in transport pods that were manufactured on the surface would take too long, because of the speed with which the mega-replicators on Bre'el III could churn out transport pods. Bre'el IV's mega-replicator output wasn't going to help very much because half of what they could produce was going to removing their _own_ people from the most heavily affected zones, in tidal areas or on fault lines. There wasn't any way to shorten the distance between either Bre'el III and Bre'el VII, or Bre'el III and Bre'el IV, with an artificial wormhole, and transporter relay stations set up between Bre'el III and Bre'el IV would cause an unacceptable degradation of the signal.

"We've had three ideas that might work. The first, easiest solution would be to have the Kaeloids ferry Bre'elians directly from III to IV instead of sending them across the solar system to VII; at impulse that's less than a five minute trip. The Kaeloid fleet has confirmed it has the capacity to evacuate 20,000 people, an operation that would probably take about half an hour or so, with another half hour to disembark. If the Kaeloids can ferry twenty thousand people between III and IV every hour or so, that gets the entire population of five hundred thousand people in about 25 hours... and the Bre'el III satellites are expected to hit in about 35 hours.

"The second possibility, if that doesn't work out, is that we use the mega-replicators to create transport platforms -- essentially, three transport pods, or more but in sets of three, which can transport a thousand people at a time. With enough antimatter that _might_ be possible... or at least to transport them fast enough to get a thousand people moved within five minutes. Instead of trying to relay the transporter _beam_, we actually relay the transporter stations, rematerializing people on each pod and then transporting them to the next pod. If we can transport a thousand people at a time, it might take five to ten minutes to get them to Bre'el IV. We set up maybe nine pods to do this, at a cost of nine hours -- or five hours if we can get Bre'el IV to contribute -- so we can transport three thousand people at once, eighteen thousand an hour, and we still get them all off the planet within 27 hours or so. This one has a lot of technical problems, and Data and I haven't yet solved all the issues with transporter buffers it would create, and we wanted to bring it up with Dr. Crusher to see if there might be any medical issues, but we think it might be better than the final alternative." Q hadn't heard this one before. They must have come up with that while he was researching how to use the transporters to save his own life.

"The final alternative is, we deliberately crash the moons into the planet, so we can control where they come down. Q ran us twelve different simulations, and Data and I picked the best three with input from Worf. Basically, we leave Bre'el IV's moon be for a little while, maybe about five hours -- with the Ferengi holding it in place it shouldn't budge in that time, now that it's in its normal orbit -- and go over to Bre'el III, where we destroy as much of the three moons as we can in ways that put the pieces on trajectories either out of III's gravity well entirely, or crashing on the uninhabited far side of the planet. The terraforming on Bre'el III has already required heavy duty air scrubbers, so they may be able to avoid an impact winter from all the dust. We consider this the riskiest option; the slightest miscalculation in the force we apply could result in giant pieces of rock hitting the inhabited region."

Picard shook his head. "Well, unfortunately the first solution doesn't appear to be workable. I've already been in contact with the Kaeloids, and they are going to be significantly less helpful than we thought. They only want to take on _one_ set of twenty thousand passengers; they never had any intention of being a ferry service."

"Why not?" Riker asked. "I'm sure every little bit helps, but only being able to rescue twenty thousand people with all those extra ships, when we've got five hundred thousand to save, is a serious problem. Is there a technological limitation of some kind?"

"They wouldn't explain."

"That's very bad," Crusher said. "Because medically I can't recommend the second option at all. Repeated transports would put a strain on the body; children, the elderly, and people who are ill might not survive the stress of repetitive, rapid transports, and it could immunocompromise the healthy ones so they would come down with illnesses they should ordinarily be immune to."

"Well, that's not good," LaForge said. "If we can't transport the people, and the Kaeloids won't ferry them for some unknown reason..."

"I know what it is," Q said, smacking himself in the head. "Idiots. They don't want to have to purify twice."

Everyone looked at him. "'Purify?' Explain," Picard said.

"Look, you've probably gathered by now, given that they refused to have contact with anyone for 37 years, that the Kaeloids are a bunch of reactionary xenophobes. They're becoming more secular now that they've gotten rid of the old ruling junta and put in a new government, but they're still not exactly comfortable with the notion that aliens are people. Normally, every time a Kaeloid lays eyes on an alien being, he has to undergo a purification ritual, so that alien ways can't contaminate his soul or something like that... and for every different being he _sees_, he needs a different ritual. So, right now, each Kaeloid ship... they sent twenty freighters, right? Each with the capacity for about a thousand people or so?"

"That is correct," Data said.

"So the crew of each Kaeloid ship has to undergo a thousand purification rituals. Which, you know, it's only about two minutes, so I guess they figured it was doable. Basically they're going to have to spend about a day doing rituals after this. But _twenty-five thousand_ purification rituals would be just out of the question."

"That's awful," Troi said. "Both that they feel they have to undergo such a burden in order to be able to rescue even a small number of people, and that it makes all their aid... well, I won't say useless, because twenty thousand people is still _helpful_, but it does make them much less helpful than we were hoping for."

"Is there anything you know of that we can do to persuade them?" Picard said.

"He made it pretty clear at the last meeting that he doesn't know how to negotiate, Captain," Riker said. "I'm not sure what help he's going to be."

"O ye of little faith, Riker. I actually do have an _excellent_ method of persuading them." He grinned broadly. "What you do is, you contact them and tell them that you have been given visions by Eshto'varras. The name is important -- Eshto'varras. You say that Eshto'varras told you that the Bre'elians are under his protection, and are pure in his eyes. This would mean they wouldn't have to do _any_ purification rituals... or if they've gotten a lot more orthodox since the last time I checked up on them, at least they can get by with a big group ritual that would cover twenty-five thousand aliens as easily as it would a thousand."

"Who is Eshto'varras?" Troi asked.

"Well, if you look at it from one perspective, it's their god. From another perspective, _I_ am. It all kind of boils down to the same thing."

"_You're_ the god of the Kaeloids?" Riker asked disbelievingly.

"I didn't say that. I don't do the god thing; getting worshipped by mortals is for losers who actually need the adulation of lesser beings to make them feel better." He looked at the ceiling. "And Q, if you're watching this because your Kaeloids are involved, yes, I absolutely mean you."

"Eshto'varras is another Q?" Picard asked.

"No, Eshto'varras is Q. Literally. Come on, did you actually think we named ourselves after the seventeenth letter of your alphabet? Q is a translation of a concept your language has no words for; not a great translation, I'll admit, but given the inadequacies of your language and even your thought processes, it was the best I could do. Eshto'varras is a translation into the Kaeloid language of the exact same concept. So if I were talking to the Kaeloids, I would also be Eshto'varras, as much so as their god. Except I wouldn't try that right _now_, being that my obvious lack of godliness would most likely get me executed for blasphemy."

"If you're not the same Eshto'varras that they worship, don't you think it's a bad idea to antagonize the Q who _is_, if you want us to use him to persuade the Kaeloids?" Crusher asked.

"Ah, he's not really watching. Truth is, he actually more or less gave up on the Kaeloids about four hundred years ago, which, mind you, is longer than I expected him to stick with them. Besides, he was never a big fan of the xenophobia, so he'd probably play along with me."

"How could the god of a planet be against xenophobia, if it's a part of their religion?" LaForge said. "That doesn't make any sense. If he didn't like the Kaeloids being xenophobes, why couldn't he just change it?"

Q gave LaForge a look. "Spoken like someone who's never actually tried being a god," he said. "Believe me. It is _not_ as easy as you think it is. Mortals positively _love_ to take everything their actual gods told them, and twist them around to gain personal power or shape their culture in a certain way. I mean, guys who show up and say 'love everyone' end up coming back a thousand years later and discovering that they're being used as an excuse for every war going on on the planet. The best you can do is generally play judo with the culture; you work with the taboos and the beliefs they already have and come up with ways to get them to do what you want by working _with_ the framework they've already got. And it usually ends up going wrong in the end anyhow."

"Q, what would prevent anyone from claiming anything in the name of Eshto'varras? Why would they believe us?" Picard asked. "It's not as if you can perform a miracle to establish our bona fides, and given that, as you say, mortals are always trying to exploit the word of god, in every culture... won't they be suspicious?"

"That's why the name is important, Picard. Eshtoism -- the religion, for lack of a better word for it -- keeps the second half of the name of their god a deeply held secret. You basically need to be a priest to know it. And anyone who's actually empowered to negotiate with aliens is almost certainly a priest. So if you say Eshto'varras told you this stuff, they _know_ for a fact that you have actually been talking to Eshto'varras, given that you're an alien and none of their priests have been offworld in 37 years and no alien has been on the Kaeloid homeworld in even longer, so there's no way you could have learned the name from a Kaeloid who knows it. And, technically, it's true -- you _have_ been talking to Eshto'varras, since the name applies to me as much as it does to the Q who actually is their god. I mean, if the secret name of God was Will, you could go ask Riker and then tell everyone that you were talking to Will, and it's not your fault that they think you mean God when in fact you mean your overly hairy second in command."

"Wait a minute," Riker said slowly. "How do you know all this? You don't know what it's like to feel hungry or to need sleep, but you know all the details of a cult your fellow Q founded more than four hundred years ago?"

"I don't know _all_ the details. And yes. Let me ask you something, Riker. If one time, maybe a few months ago, you read a manual on, say, how to operate a 20th century automobile, but then you never actually had the chance to get behind the wheel of one and try it out. Now there's a pop quiz. What are you going to remember, the latest adventures Data had with his cat that he told you about or how exactly to shift from third to fourth gear on a car you've never driven?"

"All right, I see your point," Riker said.

"I used to get constant, uh, updates I guess you'd call it, on the Kaeloids because my brother doesn't know when to shut up about a subject that bores everybody. To be honest, that's how I knew about the Ferengi mining colony and the fact that the Kaeloids were considering re-opening trade. My brother may not be actively intervening as their god right now, but he pays a ridiculous amount of attention to them, and anything any Q has recently been paying a ridiculous amount of attention to, I probably remember a good bit of the generalities." He shrugged. "It's going to be kind of random, what I know and what I don't know, as far as alien species go anyway. I mean, if you had to evacuate Memory Alpha and all you could take with you were the chips you could stuff in your pocket, that happened to be lying around where people were actively using them for research, it would be kind of random what you salvaged, too."

"We are wasting time," Worf said. "If we are going to lie to the Kaeloids to persuade them to rescue more Bre'elians, it would be best done quickly."

"Mr. LaForge," Picard said. "Even if it is possible to evacuate all the people from Bre'el III... would it create a terrible impact on us to bring down the moons as you suggested in any case? The moons will crash, whether there are people on the planet or not, and it would be better for those people if they evacuated and then had a home to return to; they shouldn't have to live permanently on Bre'el IV because the crashing moons destroyed their home and sabotaged their terraforming, if there's a way we can avoid that."

"Uh, yeah. I think you're right, Captain. No, there's no impact to _us_ in bringing down the moons; the plans we've got suggest we could do it in four or five hours with very little risk to the ship. The risk was all to the people on Bre'el III. If we got them off the planet first... well, any control applied to the moons' descent would be better than none."

"Under the circumstances, if we did it that way, we would have to contact the Calamarain and let them know that we aren't leaving the system," Troi said.

"Why would that be necessary?" Worf said. "I had thought Q negotiated some sort of arrangement with them."

"I did," Q said tightly, knowing exactly what Troi was getting at. If the Calamarain thought the _Enterprise_ was trying to flee with Q, they would pursue, and attack. "But the conditions of the deal require that I stay in-system."

"And that brings me to the next topic I wanted to discuss, since we're all here," Picard said. "I understand your concern about the time, Mr. Worf, but since the Kaeloids have not yet taken on their first load of passengers, we do have a bit of time, and this is important." He looked around at everyone at the table. "Most of you are not aware of the nature of the deal Q made with the Calamarain yesterday. The truth is, when Counselor Troi attempted to negotiate with the Calamarain, their disdain for our entire form of life led them to attack her, personally, when she revealed that we have been deliberately protecting Q. In order to save her, Q was forced to negotiate with the Calamarain directly... and, as he warned us yesterday, the only thing they were willing to accept was his surrender. He persuaded them to give him three days, so that he would have time to help us deal with the Bre'el III situation... and in exchange he agreed to surrender himself to be executed by them at the end of the three days."

"More like two, now," Q said harshly. He really didn't want to be talking about this. "Do we need to be wasting time discussing this? What, you wanted to get everyone together to plan that funeral you claimed I wanted? Which, for the record? I don't."

Picard looked directly at him, sharply. "Q, when we discussed this yesterday I told you we would try to do anything we can to protect you, but that you need to cooperate with us, and tell us what you know of the Calamarain. So. Since any hope we might possibly have of saving your life depends on knowledge of the Calamarain that only you have, if you want to live I suggest you talk to us."

"It's a waste of time," Q mumbled. Before he could add that besides, he had already thought of something that might work, Picard cut him off.

"Regardless, you did agree to tell us everything you can remember about the Calamarain so that we can help you. I understand that you don't think we'll be able to come up with anything, but it would hardly be the first time we've surprised you."

He had a point. "Fine," Q sighed. "What do you need to know?"

"To start with," Riker said, "you've said they're very smart, they're very flighty and unpredictable, they're short-sighted idiots and they're absolutely rigid. Since those things all contradict each other, I'm starting to think you're making it all up. What are they _really_ like?"

Q took a deep breath. "I am _not_ 'making it all up', Riker. You ever hear about the blind men and the elephant? If you were a Q, I could just hand you an information blob containing everything about the Calamarain, including the elements that out of context sound contradictory, but you missed _that_ chance, so you're just going to have to get the information the hard way. With words. And if they contradict themselves, well, very well, they contradict themselves. The Calamarain are large, they contain multitudes."

"Is that not a rephrasing of a quote from Walt Whitman?" Data asked.

"Very good. A gold star to the android... oh, wait, sorry, I can't give out stars anymore. You'll just have to settle for my congratulations."

"Q..." Picard said warningly.

"Fine! You want to know all about the Calamarain? I warn you, it's an _awfully_ dull subject of study, but since you insist." He pushed out of his chair, feeling restless. It wasn't like when he'd had his powers, when the very energy of his existence coursed through his adopted human form and moving it was so effortless, the sensations of having a physicality moving through an atmosphere so compelling in comparison to his usual noncorporeal state, that he could rarely be bothered to sit still while in the human form. Now it was more as if he _couldn't_ sit still -- not quite as bad as yesterday, when his muscles had seemed to want to twitch and jerk without his input if he didn't use them up in pacing or gesturing, but it was rather uncomfortable when he tried to stay in a chair without moving. Tapping his fingers wasn't doing enough for him; he had to pace. "In terms of their scientific knowledge, of their ability to observe the universe and draw conclusions when objective, verifiable data is available, they're brilliant. I mean, individually they're kind of stupid -- about low to average human, marginally smarter than a Pakled. But they're touch telepaths, and it's always on, so as long as they're in that cloud together they can link their minds and think through almost anything faster than, well, you. Except Data. Probably faster than him too, but that one I'm not 100% certain of. They were able to identify me because they detected the surge of Continuum energy around this ship when I arrived -- which, to be fair, the others weren't making any attempt to block, but your sensors couldn't read it anyway. The Calamarain can travel at high warp, they can perform limited matter-energy conversions -- not on the order of the Q, obviously, but if they felt like duplicating the capabilities of your replicators, they could -- and if they decide they want to destroy you, they will. And now that they know that you were deliberately protecting me, as opposed to just putting up shields because you were too stupid to figure out that I was the focal point of the attack, they _will_ try to destroy you if I don't surrender myself.

"But that's their technological and scientific skill. When it comes to things that are, shall we say, less objectively verifiable? The big questions -- who are we, how did we get here, what is our place in the universe, how do we relate to other species, how should we treat each other... They're _terrible_ at those. Because, you see, they are all into peace and harmony and we should all agree with each other and if you don't agree you are a big meanie and we will yell at you or ostracize you until you admit we're right. They make themselves an echo chamber -- they have no negative feedback mechanism where some Calamarain check the excesses of others. Instead the extremists drag the beliefs of everyone in the cloud over toward their extreme opinion. New ideas are either crushed, or if they become popular, consume the entire group. So they're faddish, blowing from one extreme to another, passionate and dogmatic about whatever they believe today but tomorrow it might be something else and they'll all simply pretend they don't even remember what it was they used to believe."

"Can we use that to our advantage?" Picard asked. "If they are capable of taking new ideas and responding to them so well that they forget they believed anything else, perhaps we can persuade them that they don't want to kill you."

"Well, that'd be great, but there's two problems with it. Firstly, you people are all made of meat, and as I think the Counselor gathered the other day, they're even more contemptuous of meat-beings right now than they were when I last dealt with them. So they're not going to listen to your opinions, which means they're not going to consider your ideas. And they hate me. If I couldn't get them to change their beliefs when I was _omnipotent_, I'm not going to have much luck right now."

"What did you actually _do_ to them?" Troi asked.

"You people keep asking me that question."

"Because you haven't answered it yet," Picard said. "Neither 'nothing bizarre, nothing grotesque' nor your tale of destroying their political system with a truth they weren't ready to hear actually tells us what you _did._"

Q sighed theatrically. "Fine. Not that I think it will actually help you, but since you're so desperate to know, I suppose I can oblige you." He leaned forward, hands on the table supporting his weight. "The Calamarain, you see, believe that they are the pinnacle of existence. All other species are examined from the perspective of how much they are like Calamarain, and found lacking when they are different. That in itself is hardly unusual -- you humans are infamous for it." He met Picard's eyes, then straightened up and started to pace again. "But the Calamarain take it to an extreme. They don't want to acknowledge that _any_ other race has a talent, skill or ability that they lack or that improves on their own. You humans at least borrow freely from the good ideas of other species, and pay lip service to them being your equals -- that's how you manage to ally yourselves with so many other races. Not the Calamarain! They're the unchallenged lords of the universe, the pinnacle of evolution. Oh, except they didn't evolve. They came into existence just like this, and have never needed to grow or improve because for all of time they have been perfect." He snorted. "Even the _Continuum_ evolved. The Calamarain are idiots. And I find idiocy of such nature... irresistible." He grinned.

"Sounds like you didn't like the fact that they thought they were superior to the Q," Riker said. "Or do you not count as a race, to the Calamarain?"

"Oh, no, you're quite right, they thought they were better than me. But, I mean, Vulcans think they're better than the Q and that doesn't give me the overwhelming urge to... provide another perspective. No, it's that the Calamarain are so _arrogant_ in their stupidity. So I decided to give them a little demonstration of some facts of life -- that they're not perfect, that they're not superior to everyone, and that they haven't always been what they are."

"So this is where the torment comes in," Riker said.

"Well, if you count it as torment. I would have thought they'd take it as a learning experience, but there you go."

"Again. What did you _do_?" Picard asked.

Q sighed. "I'm _getting_ to it, Picard. Really, you're so impatient. One would think _you're_ the one with only two days to live."

"If you would like to extend that time, giving us the information we've asked for _quickly_ is your best option."

"All right, then. I fail to see what good _any_ of this will do you, but since you want to know so badly. I took some of them, separately, back to different times in the history of the Calamarain's civilization and evolution, to see where they had come from. I transformed others -- made them into energy beings, or different gas beings, or liquid beings or solid beings. Even made some of them humanoid. I took some to see the possible futures of the Calamarain, including ones where they were destroyed by something they completely underestimated. And I split hundreds of them apart from the others, so they would learn that their much-vaunted superiority _only_ exists in numbers... that by themselves, each individual Calamarain is virtually helpless." He shrugged. "I was trying to give them some perspective on the universe, and their place in it."

"I take it that didn't work," Riker said.

"No, it really didn't. It's the groupthink thing. Individually I convinced most of the ones I singled out for my, uh, field trips, but once they all got back together in their cloud they just convinced each other that all I'd done was to subject them to terrifying illusions in order to, I don't know, just be evil, or something. Except that some of them wouldn't buy it, and those ones actually refused to be swayed by the groupthink, because there were enough of them to reinforce it. Those guys _could_ have crystallized into a loyal opposition, a feedback mechanism for the group mind, but noooo... after a lot of arguing and angsting and trying to pressure the others into being good little Calamarain and going along with the rest of the group, they finally threw the dissenters out. And they blame _me_ for this. They believe that I destroyed the unity of the Calamarain and threw them into chaos, did them permanent damage because now everyone has to live with the knowledge of having cast out fellow Calamarain, and the idea that the _very fact_ that I could do this disproves their belief that the Calamarain can do anything that anyone in the universe has the ability to do? They've been sticking their fingers in their metaphorical ears singing 'La la la, I can't hear you' every time that comes up."

For a moment everyone was quiet. Then Crusher said, in her "humor the idiot" voice, "Did it ever occur to you that maybe, just possibly, if they were going to react in such a violent way to you picking them up and flinging them around the universe randomly to teach them 'lessons', that maybe they weren't ready to learn?"

Q glared at Crusher. "Look, Crusher, the fact that I did this and it didn't work is going to kill me. I don't need you rubbing it in."

"Would the Calamarain who were exiled be able to help you?" Troi asked. "Perhaps if they could negotiate on your behalf..."

"That would be very helpful if I had the faintest idea where in the universe they _are_," Q snapped. "Besides, I don't even know if they're still alive. They weren't doing so well the last I saw them."

"If we could find them, would they help you?"

"If I suddenly turned into a frog, Troi, would that help me? Because that's about as likely. And I don't know if they would anyway. Just because they believed what I had to teach them doesn't mean they _like_ me for showing it to them; after all, they got exiled from their homes for it. I don't recall them actually putting me on trial like this batch did, but for all I know they want me dead just as badly."

"You mentioned yesterday that the Calamarain are telepathic with humans as well?" Picard asked.

"Yes, but only by touch. If you wanted to contact them, you'd have to use the telepathic amplifier we built to send a request; the amplifier should be able to reach them across the Bre'el system. But they can't read _you_ unless they're touching you, and even then probably only surface thoughts." He shook his head. "But you know what, none of this is necessary, because I've already figured out a way to survive this. All I need is some of Data's time after the immediate crisis is over to help me reconfigure the transporter."

"You have?" Picard sounded surprised. "Why didn't you mention this earlier?"

"Because I got the distinct impression that you people would consider it excessively bizarre. And because it's hardly a perfect solution. It still requires me to die, but it games reality so that I can live as well."

"That makes no sense," LaForge said. "How can you die and live... oh, wait. Oh, no, I know where you're going with this one." He shook his head, sounding disappointed and troubled.

Q decided to ignore LaForge's reaction. "You see, I know for a fact that your transporter can duplicate people perfectly. Admittedly, thus far it's only done it by accident, but anything that your technology can do by accident, I have confidence that you guys can figure out how to do intentionally."

They were looking at him as if he'd grown three heads. Picard said slowly, as if horrified, "Q, you aren't seriously suggesting... creating a sentient duplicate of yourself, to die in your place?"

Q blinked. "That makes no sense, Picard. If he's a duplicate of me, then he's not dying in my place, it's his place too. For that matter I'm dying in his place. We're the _same._"

"This came up at the meeting before, in engineering," LaForge said. "Q thinks a duplicate of himself would be the same person. I mean, literally, like you could put one on trial for the crimes the other committed."

"I don't even understand how it's possible for the transporter to duplicate someone that precisely," Crusher said. "I've heard of cases where the transporter has accidentally created two copies of a person with different mental states, but I've never heard of a case where the copy is exact."

Q smiled broadly. Now that he was in this limited state, he took even more pleasure from the moments when he knew something none of them did. "Of course you haven't heard of it; his crewmates abandoned him when they got one copy, thinking the transport complete. Poor fellow's been stranded there for, what, nearly five years now?" He turned toward Riker. "Guy name of Lieutenant William Riker, of the _Potemkin_. I think you might know him."

Riker stared. "What?" he finally managed.

"You've got a twin, Billy boy," Q said. "I forget the name of the planet, but I'm pretty sure you could figure it out. It was that one with the research outpost and you can only get to it every eight years because of the distortion field or something?"

"How do you _know_ this?"

"Oh, come on, I offered you the power of the Q. You think I did that because I fell for your baby blue eyes? You had a control. If you'd accepted, I would have told you about your twin -- or you'd have figured it out for yourself, because of course you'd have been as nigh-omniscient as the rest of us -- and you'd have rescued him and dropped him off on the _Enterprise_ to live out your life for you, so I'd have been able to compare a human Riker with a Q who used to be a human Riker, and determine which aspects of your personality and nature are unique to you and which pertain to your humanity."

"So... that's all it was? It wasn't because you thought I was... special, or especially corruptible, or... it was just because I had a _transporter duplicate?_ How did that even happen?"

"The redundancy in the beam," Q said cheerfully, enjoying the wide-eyed stares from the senior staff. "The transporter chief was afraid he wasn't going to get you with the distortion field, so he tried a second containment beam. The containment beam, you probably know, is what carries the pattern and forces the energy that used to be your matter to stay in a certain shape instead of, well, exploding with the force of several hundred petajoules. The _second_ beam was shaped like you, but they recovered all of your matter with the first beam, so the second beam just grabbed energy from the distortion field and random matter from the planetary surface, and made a copy of you out of it." He looked over at Data. "Admittedly we don't have a distortion field, but we _should_ theoretically be able to rig the transporter to initialize two containment beams for the same being, and then put the second one in a sufficiently dense collection of matter -- maybe water, since I'll have to be able to get out of it without having bodily organs melded contiguously with some surface that _isn't_ my body -- that the second beam can get enough matter to make another me. And then one of me goes to the Calamarain and the other stays here."

"You really are talking about sending someone off to die in your place," Picard said quietly. "I was hoping that wasn't what you meant."

"That's _not_ what I meant, so why do you keep saying it is? Look, there'd be two me's, both equally me. One of me dies, one of me lives. I become Schroedinger's Q, alive and dead at the same time. Nobody sends anybody to die."

"But you're manufacturing a copy of yourself, for the sole purpose of his dying that you can live!" Picard's tone was not exactly shouting, but it was sharp. "How is it that you can't see the immorality of that?"

"What's immoral? I'm the copy! Or rather, from here, where I make the decision, there _is_ no copy. Both will be me; I experience both futures. It's like splitting a timeline, except nothing happens to time so everyone is aware it's happening."

"And what happens if you do this, and neither of you want to be the one who dies so that the other can live?" Troi asked.

"That's not going to happen. The alternative here isn't that I live, after all. The best I'm going to manage is living and dying at the same time; it's not that I'm creating a copy to die, it's that I'm creating a copy to live. If you have to look at it that way. Myself, I don't see it as creating a copy at all, per se; the original me won't exist anymore, after all."

"One of you will be composed of the same matter that was converted in the containment beam, and the other will not," Data pointed out. "That would define which one is the original, legally."

"Data, I'm not made of the same matter I was any of the times I came to your ship; I materialize myself out of nothing all the _time_. ...Well, I did, anyway. I'm not really attached to my matter. For that matter, none of the humanoids here are made of the same matter they were made of ten years ago, and nobody cares." Why couldn't they understand this? Surely they could recognize that if they disagreed with him about metaphysics, he, the billion-year-old entity who used to be able to play with the fabric of time and space, was more likely to be in the right? Or if they couldn't accept that, couldn't they just accept that he believed what he believed, and that from his perspective this wasn't what they were thinking it was at all? "Look, if I was talking about snapping my fingers and making a thinking simulacrum of myself to go die, I could see your point. That'd be kind of iffy, if the copy was sentient. But I'm still talking about sacrificing _myself._ There's no 'real me' if we make two identical copies; they're _both_ me."

"And the one who goes to die will be perfectly comfortable with being sacrificed so the other one can live?" Picard asked sarcastically.

"Well, I'm not perfectly comfortable with dying under any circumstance; frankly, I'm just not thrilled with this pain thing. I suppose if the Calamarain were just going to put me to sleep, I wouldn't have any problem with it, but no, I admit it, I don't like the thought of enduring pain. But what you're not getting is that if I don't do something like this, I'll die anyway. So if I have the choice between dying completely, and dying but knowing that there's an identical me who's still alive, I'm going to take the option that leaves me alive at the end of it, even if I have to die to get there." He scrunched his hands in his hair in frustration. "I _hate_ your language! It's bad enough to teach you concepts you haven't grasped yet that you at least have words for; I can't even use the pronouns your language provides to _talk_ about this properly!"

"Does this happen in the Continuum a lot?" Riker asked, still looking stunned. "People just... copy themselves? Or each other?"

"Themselves. It'd be a serious breach of etiquette to copy someone else. But yeah. You have something boring you need to do, and something more fun you're in the middle of, you just split yourself, and later on when you merge back together you can get the memories of having done both things."

"Mortals can't merge themselves back together," Troi said. "That would make a great deal of difference, I think."

Q shrugged, lifting and opening his hands in a dismissive gesture. "Not _that_ much, I'm sure."

Data said, "It is against Federation law to create a copy of a living sentient being. It is also against Federation law to create a copy of a sentient being for purposes of being a decoy -- to suffer a penalty in the place of the creator, for instance. The second is quite a serious charge. If you did do this, Q, the iteration of you that survived could be prosecuted for the murder of the iteration that died."

Q stared at him. "You cannot be serious, Data."

"I can recite the full text of the relevant statutes to you if you would like."

"No. No, that's not necessary." For the first time it dawned on him that they really might not let him do this -- that they might throw away his best chance at survival for the sake of their stupid miscomprehension of the continuity of identity. "What... what if we explicitly make one as the original and the second as a copy through time delay, and the original is the one who goes to die? How could that be illegal?"

"It would be illegal because creating a copy of yourself in the first place is creating a copy of a sentient being."

"But the me who did that would die! So the copy couldn't be held responsible for having created himself, could he? I mean, how does that make any sense?"

"Q, even if they couldn't prosecute the surviving version of you, they could prosecute _Data_ for helping you," LaForge said.

"Oh." That settled that. He wouldn't expose Data to danger for his own survival; it had hurt too much to see Data half-taken apart in sickbay, unable to speak, and to know he had been the cause. "But what if I did it all on my own? I might be able to figure out how to rig your transporter just on my own, without help. I mean, it can't be that hard; your technology runs on physics, and I understand physics..."

"No, Q," Picard said, almost gently. "You have no way of knowing how the experience of being human would change your perception of your alternate self, but the fact that you wouldn't be able to share thoughts and memories with the other you, the fact that to all of your senses he would seem a completely different being... that might have a far greater impact than you are considering. What if you make the decision, and afterward, the one who's chosen to die finds that he has second thoughts? You cannot put yourself in a situation where you must compete for your own survival with a copy of yourself. It is immoral to do that to a human, because of human limitations in the perception of self. It is immoral to do it to yourself, because you would be inflicting the problem on two men who don't exist yet, the two human beings that you would become. I understand that your culture does not consider this immoral, but your culture has different constraints -- the fact that the Q can split into two and merge back together makes what you're suggesting now a completely different situation than what a Q would face. And regardless of whether you agree with the immorality or not, the fact is that it is illegal, precisely because of the immorality we perceive in it. No one aboard the _Enterprise_ will help you to do such a thing, nor will you be allowed to use the ship's transporters."

Picard's words were like the jaws of a trap, closing on him and crushing the breath from his lungs. In horror, Q realized he was dangerously close to tears again -- this tight feeling in his chest, his difficulty breathing, was just like he'd felt in Picard's office when Troi had exposed him and then Picard had insulted him, calling him childish for saving Picard's precious ship. No. He was _not_ going to cry again. Not here, not in front of all of them. But he had had hope, for a few short hours. He'd seen a lifeline hanging from the bridge, and just as he'd reached for it Picard had snatched it away, leaving him to drown in the icy whirlpool of his own impending death.

"Fine. Fine." His hands were shaking. "Your primitive misunderstanding of metaphysics would be laughable if it weren't going to kill me. But fine. The only possible solution we could come up with to save my life, and you don't want to do it because you have some convoluted reason why it violates Federation morality, but fine. I'm human now. I have to obey your laws, after all." He laughed, a short, sharp sound, and cut it off before it turned into a sob. "So I'll do that. I'll obey your human laws, your human morality. And I'll die as a human." He spun on his heel and headed for the door.

"Q--" Picard said.

"I'm done here. Entertain yourselves contemplating the futility of avoiding the inevitable, if you wish, but I know better. I'm not going to make the mistake of hoping--" His voice almost broke. He couldn't keep talking, or they'd hear how weak he was, how close to breaking down, so he cut the sentence off and stalked out of the room without another word.

* * *

After he was gone, there was silence for a moment. Then LaForge said, "Remind me again why we're trying to save his life?"

No one laughed, but Troi felt several of the others feeling a sense of amused recognition. Despite herself, she felt that this was not really fair.

She really didn't _want_ to be feeling sorry for Q. After the way he had treated her yesterday, she wanted to be furious with him. But even yesterday, after Captain Picard had called her back to his ready room once Q was back in engineering and explained the situation, she'd felt reluctant sympathy for him. It was the curse of being an empath, particularly one with extensive training and experience as a counselor; she couldn't avoid seeing the other point of view in a conflict. And it did seem like it would be fairly horrifying to agree to sacrifice your life to save others, only to be told you had a 'childish martyrdom complex' by one of the people you were trying to save. Q's overreaction had been part exhaustion, stress and the despair weighing on him from the deal he'd made with the Calamarain, part betrayal and shock at Picard's reaction to his sacrifice, and part a genuine horror of having his emotions revealed publicly. She hadn't been able to quite forgive him, but she had begun to understand where he'd been coming from.

Now she was even more inclined to feel sympathy for him, having been right here to sense what he'd been feeling during the meeting. She'd sensed the confidence and hope he'd started with when he started to describe his plan disintegrate into disbelief, and then horror, and then utter despair and grief as he'd fully comprehended that he wouldn't be allowed to carry out his plan. "That's not entirely fair, Geordi," she said. "I think Q's reaction is understandable. From his perspective, he's being forbidden to carry out the only plan he can imagine to save his own life, for reasons he finds incomprehensible." She leaned forward, looking directly at LaForge. "Imagine if you were sick, and became stranded on a planet with a religious objection to medicine. You'd know that with medical attention you would probably be fine, and without it you'll surely die... but the people you're among not only have no doctors, they won't let you summon one from offworld because they believe medicine is morally wrong. That's the same sort of situation Q feels he's in."

"Our objection to duplicating sentient beings is hardly religious, Counselor," Picard pointed out.

"Of course, sir, but it _is_ metaphysical. And Q's understanding of metaphysics is apparently different from ours, and since his civilization is older and more technologically advanced, he believes he's right, and we're superstitious primitives. Most of us wouldn't be happy to die to conform to the superstitious beliefs of a pre-warp civilization, and we've all agreed to do it if necessary when we joined Starfleet and vowed to uphold the Prime Directive. As nearly as we can tell, Q doesn't have any Prime Directive or similar concept constraining him; he never agreed to die for what we _believe_, when it contradicts his beliefs."

"Regardless of his beliefs about our metaphysics, we couldn't simply go along with his plan," Picard said, a slight sharp edge to his voice.

"Oh, no, I agree, sir. I'm not saying that we did anything wrong in refusing Q permission to try to duplicate himself. I believe that you were right -- he hasn't thought through how different the experience of having a duplicate would be if he can't remain in telepathic contact with the duplicate or re-merge with him later. But I only wanted to point out that Q's behavior was actually understandable."

"Sorry, Counselor," LaForge said. He sighed. "I guess it does make sense, but I've been dealing with his temper tantrums for two days now. It gets old."

"I'm sure it does, Mr. LaForge," Picard said. "But I'd like you to keep something in mind." He steepled his fingers together on the table. "We all know how irritating Q is. He's not our friend. He's not our crewmate. In fact, until recently, he treated us as if we were his playthings. He is not kind, or polite, or friendly; when he's at his best, he's still insulting, and when he's at his worst he's positively vicious. None of us like him.

"And Q _knows_ this. And he doesn't come from a culture that puts any value on self-sacrifice or altruism; he's quite possibly never been in a position where he _could_ sacrifice anything of value to himself, until now. He has no experience dealing with the fear of death. He has no tolerance for pain or even minor discomfort. He has, historically, been incredibly selfish, and even now he is very self-centered and egotistical.

"Yet, despite all that, Q agreed to sacrifice himself to the Calamarain to save our lives. Moreover, he agreed to do so in a way he finds humiliating and distasteful in order to buy himself a few extra days to help us; when I talked to him, he didn't seem to have asked for the extra time so much for himself as for us, and the people in the Bre'el system. While all of us went into Starfleet with the understanding that it might someday require us to give our lives, Q came to us for sanctuary and protection. He was completely unprepared for the concept of self-sacrifice when he came here, and yet still he consented to hand himself over to an enemy to be executed for crimes that, as you all heard, he _still_ doesn't think were of any significant harm to the victims, to protect us. Despite the fact that he knows we don't even like him."

"I... guess I didn't think of it that way," LaForge said.

"Of course not. Q is an atrocious nuisance. We all resent that he came to us and disrupted our rescue operations, I'm sure. But if he hadn't, we might not have figured out how to stop the Bre'el IV moon from falling, and we _certainly_ would not have realized the danger to Bre'el III until it was entirely too late to do anything. As annoying as he is, Q may have contributed to saving thousands of lives, possibly even millions. And with that alone, Q has repaid our efforts thus far to protect him. But when you consider that he plans to sacrifice himself to protect _us_, despite the fact that self-sacrifice must be an utterly alien concept to him... I think Q has earned our best efforts to save him."

"Sorry, sir," LaForge said, abashed.

"Now. I don't think we're going to get any more information out of Q. Let's regroup later in the day, after we've dealt with the things we need to for the current crisis, and see if any of us can come up with any ideas for how we can save Q from the Calamarain, that don't involve sacrificing a transporter duplicate of him at any rate." A very slight smile appeared on Picard's face as he said the last.

There was a general chorus of "Aye, sirs". Troi hung back slightly as most of the others left. So did Will, but he had a different agenda.

"Captain. Once we're done with this entire thing... as soon as we have the opportunity, I'd like permission to go investigate and see if I can find this... duplicate of myself Q was talking about."

"Granted, Number One. At the earliest opportunity, we'll look into that." Picard nodded, then turned to Troi. "Counselor?"

"I was just wondering... since you actually seem to understand him better than most of us. Should I go after Q? Try to talk to him?"

Picard shook his head. "No, Counselor. Not right away. Let him have some time. If you'd like to talk to him later in the afternoon, he should have himself better under control, but he'll only be humiliated if you find him when he's still this upset, and he'll take it out on you. You won't get anywhere with him unless you give him some time to regain some equilibrium."

She nodded. That was what she'd thought, although her sympathies as a counselor made it hard for her to simply let someone run off in such obvious pain without doing anything about it. "I'll see about talking to him later, then." Troi smiled ironically. "Perhaps I'll apologize. I'm sure that will startle him."

Picard smiled. "Most likely, yes."


End file.
